Barkley's World Cup dream gets off to awkward start

England away tours must sometimes resemble a school trip, with headmaster Roy Hodgson making sure the squad are in the right rooms, are in bed 11pm and  arerespectful of the locals.

Their high profile also means security is a concern, with their daily trip to training in Rio resembling something like a military operation.

What Hodgson doesn't need therefore is one of his players to forget what time it is.

Enter Ross Barkley.

The Everton man was late for England's scheduled 9:45am departure time from the hotel this morning and the team bus promptly went without him.

Hodgson and his staff must have realise they were one short in number when they saw Leighton Baines sitting on his own so pulled over to the side of the road - all while onlookers, police and the media gathered around and frustrated traffic built up behind them.

Queue Barkley making a frantic dash up the road for the stationary bus before getting on to the sound of ironic applause from the rest of the team.

Thankfully the rest of the day seemed to pass off without incident - though Barkley may well be getting a early wake up call tomorrow morning.