I hope I'm not being over the top here but when Wayne Rooney is handed his 120th England cap tonight it will feel like a part of the national football side's integrity will have been diminished.

I've tried to like the idea; I really have.

Wayne is due to come on as a second-half substitute in tonight's game against the United States - where the striker now plays his club football for DC United - despite announcing in 2017 that he was retiring from international football.

At the age of 33, his recent form compared to those also called into manager Gareth Southgate's squad doesn't stack up as being worthy of a spot but the FA have still afforded him the luxury and said it wants to recognise his contribution to England's national team.

On the face of it, it's nice to honour a man who has played 119 times for his country and holds the goal-scoring record - at 53 - but it's a gimmick and I just can't support it.

Surely he has been honoured 119 times already.

Rooney has been a good servant, no-one can argue that, but in my mind there have been far greater ones and they didn't depart with a circus that allowed them one more cap and a chance to wave goodbye.

Where was Bobby Charlton's ceremonial extra cap?

Why didn't Bobby Moore get one?

Surely Peter Shilton was worthy of one? - the list can go on.

All with greater claims to England immortality than Wayne Rooney in my opinion and yet none of them was afforded this sort of treatment by an indulgent FA.

It's odd and it lowers the tone of the national game, but also sets a troubling precedent.

Will we now have to go through more games in the future where players are brought back out for one last game after they've announced more than 12 months earlier that they're done with the international stage?

If that's the case, I for one will be intrigued to hear what the FA's stipulations to qualify for the 'one extra cap' are.

And if they don't do it for others in the way that they have for Wayne Rooney, surely it will diminish the contributions they've made for England.

I look forward to seeing Geoff Hurst, Paul Gascoigne, Terry Butcher and Gary Lineker trotting out at Wembley in the second half of some forthcoming internationals to pick up their ceremonial extra caps.

It just won't happen, so why is it for Wayne Rooney?

I'm honestly not having a go at Wayne and you can understand why he's embracing occasion as it's an important fundraiser for his charity, but that could have been achieved without all the nonsense of him playing and getting a ceremonial extra cap.

That cap he's going to be picking up really shouldn't be classed alongside the 119 legitimate ones he's got and I think the FA and English football in general should put a greater value on an international cap.

Listen to some of this country's greatest players and how much every one of their caps mean to them and it highlights the ridiculousness of what the FA will be allowing to happen tonight.

To be honest, though, it is the type of self-congratulatory rubbish that we should have come to expect from top level football.

You can't imagine some other - perhaps more grounded - team sports sanctioning it.

I know the Australian cricket team is in a spot of pickle right now, but the way they venerate the 'Baggy Green' shows the value they place on international caps Down Under.

While the Aussies' Test team may not be the greatest example for the England football team to follow at the moment, the FA needs to look at the way every single appearance for their players is given the highest regard.

They aren't handed out lightly.

England caps - every single one - must be badges of honour that players have properly earned and can truly look at with pride, not trinkets handed out by a benevolent governing body when they fancy it.