Wayne Rooney a 'hooligan' and a 'freckled demon' - Marca

Spanish paper Marca has called Wayne Rooney a ‘hooligan’ as well as a ‘freckled demon’ ahead of Wednesday’s Champion League’s match between Manchester United and Real Madrid.

On the front page of the Madrid based daily, Rooney was described as “El Coco” (meaning “bogey man) and inside was a detailed piece describing him as “a barrel packed with gunpowder”. The daily also talks about the player’s instances of confrontations in the past with Real Madrid players.

“Wayne Rooney is a football player and hooligan all rolled into one,” Marca’s Hugo Cerezo wrote. “To look at him, you’d think he was one of the 4,000 British fans on the terraces … yelling and drinking beer and jumping the queue to get in through Gate D.

“But Rooney will run out on to the turf at the Bernabéu and face players who have bones to pick with him. Pepe, [Ricardo] Carvalho, [Iker] Casillas and Cristiano Ronaldo may well relive their encounters with the English bad boy.”

Marca also wrote about Rooney’s indiscretion during the 2006 World Cup. During that tournament, the referee was encouraged by Cristiano Ronaldo to remove him for a foul on the latter’s team-mate, Ricardo Carvalho. It also points out that Rooney, in one of his tweets, called Pepe an ‘idiot’ after the match against Barcelona in Copa del Rey in the last season.

In response to Marca’s report, Rooney’s former team-mate Gary Neville called it a ‘harsh’ verdict.