Dele Alli and England Drop Their Guard and Their Past

(On Soccer)

LONDON — Dele Alli’s first memory of England at a World Cup is not of a goal or of a game. He cannot even place it to a specific tournament, not exactly. His best guess is 2006, when he would have just turned 10, but he cannot say for certain that it was not a couple of years earlier, at the European Championships of 2004. Both would fit the time frame: old enough to remember the outline, young enough to forget the detail.