Chance for Bowyer and Woodgate to show maturity

Leeds pair called-up by England will forever be linked by infamous court case but are opposites in style, strengths and personalities

The last time Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate were on trial together, as the Leeds United duo will be in England's friendly against Portugal at Villa Park on Saturday, there was more than a place in Sven Goran Eriksson's plans for the Euro 2004 qualifying campaign at stake.

Their selection for the England squad yesterday means that the careers of the two players are again running parallel, much as they ran together through the streets of Leeds on the January night in 2000 that led to their spending months in the dock at Hull Crown Court, charged with affray and grievous bodily harm in connection with an assault on an Asian student, Sarfraz Najeib.

The case against Bowyer and Woodgate could have cost them their liberty and, with it, a privileged lifestyle of big salaries, expensive cars and plush property. After two trials, the first of which collapsed on the eve of the verdict when a Sunday newspaper published a potentially prejudicial report, Bowyer was acquitted on all charges while Woodgate was found guilty of affray, but escaped with a community-service sentence.

The uncapped Bowyer, as the Leeds chairman Peter Ridsdale later remarked, played throughout the case like a man who believed he was innocent. The London-born midfielder, now 25 but the game's costliest teenager when Howard Wilkinson bought him from Charlton for £2.6m in 1996, scored in the Champions' League against Barcelona, Lazio and Milan amid frequent dashes between courtroom and dressing-room.

The contrast with Woodgate, 22, could hardly have been more stark. The gangling defender from Teesside, capped by Kevin Keegan against Bulgaria in 1999 before he had even played a full season for Leeds, betrayed the effects of the trials in his form, fitness and even his face, which looked gaunt, lined and unmistakably troubled whenever television cameras showed him leaving court.

Paradoxically, Bowyer's standards slipped after he was cleared. Normally a waspish one-man swarm with a penchant for goals, he scored only twice during Leeds' sharp decline in the second half of last season. He was resentful at being fined by the club for the heavy drinking that preceded the attack on Najeib, and dismayed to hear Ridsdale declare that they would never have bought him had "we known then what we know now".

David O'Leary then suggested, incredibly, that it would have better for his team if both players had been found guilty. Bowyer at least remained a fixture in his side, which could not be said of Woodgate, who made two clusters of appearances amounting to 11 games. In April, just when it seemed that the player described by his own counsel as "two short planks, and thick ones at that" was back at his best, his jaw was broken during "high jinks" outside the Middlesbrough pub where his England shirt hangs in a frame behind the bar.

Eriksson, under instructions from the FA, did not consider either for the World Cup on the understanding that the slate would be wiped clean in the autumn. Amid the close-season turbulence at Leeds, which saw O'Leary and Rio Ferdinand depart and Terry Venables arrive against a backdrop of mounting debts, Bowyer all but joined Liverpool. He promptly compounded his reputation as a one-man awkward squad by pulling out of the move and returning to Yorkshire.

Now claiming to be a more mellow character, who prefers catching fish in the anonymity of France to drinking like one in the Majestyk nightclub, he has begun the season with a flourish. In Leeds' win at West Bromwich, he curled in a long-distance contender for August's best goal. He demonstrated similar deftness from close range at Birmingham, underlining why Venables is anxious for him to sign the new contract that would prevent his leaving on a Bosman free next summer.

The beauty of Bowyer, who first made the England squad as a non-playing member under Glenn Hoddle more than five years ago, is that he can play anywhere across the midfield line. His knack of breaking into striking positions makes him doubly valuable.

Woodgate's rehabilitation, typically, continues to be a more staccato affair. Sources close to Leeds insist he is genuinely remorseful for his part in the attack on Najeib, and his partnership with Dominic Matteo promised to soften the blow of Ferdinand's defection to Manchester United. However, he suffered a severely-gashed leg in a pre-season friendly at Rangers and missed the chance to impress the England manager in Leeds' opening-day defeat of Manchester City.

Returning against West Bromwich, he was substituted five minutes after half-time because Venables felt he looked tired and he will go into Saturday's match with only one full game in five months. At his sharpest, he is strong in the air, has a vice-like tackle, covers ground quickly and reads the game well. Qualities that should serve England well, but the test for both Woodgate and Bowyer now is to prove they have the maturity to go with their undoubted ability.