The modern incarnation of Wayne Rooney is a contradiction wrapped in an enigma. Despite holding goalscoring records for both club and country – beating out players like Bobby Charlton, Denis Law, Alan Shearer and countless others – he seems to be universally derided as hindrance to both teams.
He is a player that is attacked for his lack of leadership by fans, despite having been named captain by seven combined managers at domestic and national level. He is mocked for his headless-chicken style of constant movement, while concurrently laughed at for being out of shape.
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He has scored 44 goals and created 34 more for Manchester United since Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013, and yet, when you watch him play, it seems like he poses a great danger to his own team’s attack than the opposition’s defence.
Despite the apparent perplexity, there are actually very clear roots to Rooney’s dichotomous reputation. While no sane commentator would declare the Liverpudlian’s achievements to be anything but astonishing, the same person would probably also declare the forward’s career to be nothing short of a disappointment.
After all, delivering Adam Lambert after promising Freddie Mercury is a recipe for anticlimactic regret.
The Early Years
Although he now perpetuates the standard image of the uncaring elite, Rooney’s beginnings were far from auspicious. Child to a dinner lady and a labourer that was reportedly employed for shorter periods than not, young Wayne grew up in the tough neighbourhood of Croxteth in North-Eastern Liverpool. While not as crime-ridden as some right-wing rags would have you believe, it is definitely not a community for the faint hearted.
For the young prodigy, his path out of a life of hardship would require a helping hand – in this case, two feet bestowed with ridiculous reserves of footballing talent. His immense potential was recognised quite early by the local Everton scouts, who persuaded him to join their academy aged just nine years old. In his last season for the local boys’ club Copplehouse, Rooney scored an incomprehensible 99 goals.
Upon joining his new club, Rooney rose through the ranks rapidly, and was an under-19 regular at the tender age of just 15. At this point, his spectacular ability had become obvious to everyone at the club. Colin Harvey, erstwhile Everton manager and youth coach who became the young man’s mentor, recalled a particular incident that spoke for Rooney’s talent.
During a lull in training, the striker decided to practice his aim by shooting at goal from around 70 yards out. The powerful shot crashed against the crossbar, and nearly made it back to the halfway line without landing.
Despite these internal heroics, he was still an unknown figure to the rest of the footballing public. The Everton youth team’s astonishing run to the FA Youth Cup final in 2002 would thrust Rooney into the spotlight, as he nearly drove them to success with 8 goals in as many games. His 35-yard screamer against Tottenham in the semifinal is said to have left former England great Glenn Hoddle astonished.
Thus, when David Unsworth, Everton defender at the time, claimed that Rooney would not just become a legend but “the legend” on Merseyside – before he had made his senior debut – there was no hint of hyperbolism on his part.
“The greatest young English talent I’ve ever seen” – Arsene Wenger
After years of impressing with the youth teams, Rooney was finally transplanted to the senior squad for the 2002/03 season by new Everton manager David Moyes. He played his first game in a 2-2 draw against Tottenham in August, impressing by creating the first goal for the Blues. He would go on to score his first goals shortly thereafter, putting two past Wrexham in the League Cup in October.
While he was making steady progress under Moyes, his national breakthrough was just around the corner. On 19 October, reigning champions Arsenal came to Goodison Park in a bid to stretch their unbeaten sequence in the league to 31 games. As the clocked ticked down to a nervy 1-1 draw, Moyes decided to bring on Rooney for the last ten minutes.
The gamble came off with spectacular results, as Rooney knocked in an astonishing winner from 25 yards out with just seconds remaining. In the post-match press conferences, both managers were full of effusive praise for the striker, including the aforementioned declaration by Wenger. By his own admission, Rooney celebrated the goal by going home for a kick-about with his friends. The English public had a new working class hero to worship.
The goal was his first in the league, and it made him the youngest scorer in Everton’s history. It would be the first of many records the forward would claim, including becoming the youngest recipient of a red card on 26 Decemeber 2002 in a match against Birmingham City.
Days later, he would extend his ban from three matches to four after picking up his fifth yellow card of the season. However, Rooney Mania was in full swing by this time, and his temper was just attributed to an abundance of that most loved English trait, passion.
In between those two suspension-inducing punishments, Rooney deservedly picked up the prestigious BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year for 2002. Having already scored five goals in nine starts, this would lead to a first professional contract in January. By taking home £13,000 per week at the age of 17, Rooney became Everton’s highest paid youngster of all time, as well as one of the best-paid teenagers on the planet.
Rooney’s development continued apace for the next year and a half, as he notched up a total of 17 goals in 48 games for Everton going into the summer of 2004. Despite being impressive figures for a player so young, he had started to pick up a reputation as a scorer of great goals rather than a great scorer of goals. His record of more yellow cards (11) than goals (9) in the 2003/04 season seemed to substantiate that claim.
Nonetheless, there were not many who would’ve disagreed with Wenger’s assessment that Rooney “could be[come] another George Best.” The talent was clearly visible to everyone, but the question remained as to his aptitude for consistent performance at the highest level. Rooney would emphatically answer his doubters at his first major international tournament in the summer of 2004.
The White Pelé
Rooney was first called up to the English national team in February 2003, and made his first appearance off the bench against Australia. He made his full debut two months later in a match against Turkey, where he claimed the man of the match after inspiring his team to a 2-0 victory.
His first international goal came in his fourth match, in September of the same year, against Macedonia. As had become the norm for Rooney, he had broken English records for both youngest appearance-maker and youngest goal-scorer.
Despite this rapid success, there were still criticisms for Sven-Goran Eriksson, the English manager, when he selected Rooney for the national squad travelling to the European Championship in Portugal in 2004. England were genuine favourites for the title that year having arrived with a talented team near their prime, and many feared that Rooney was not ready for the challenge. They need not have worried.
In their first game, England were unlucky to lose 2-1 to France, after Zinedine Zidane scored two late goals to gift the result to the defending champions. However, a bright spot from the match was Rooney’s performance. Despite failing to find the back of the net, he was involved in all of England’s positive forward momentum and was duly awarded the man of the match award in recognition.
Going into their remaining matches against Switzerland and Croatia, England knew they would have to win to progress to the quarterfinals. It took Rooney just 23 minutes to open his account against the Swiss, as he headed in a Michael Owen cross.
He would double his tally towards the end of the match, giving England a ruthless, if slightly undeserved, 3-0 victory. As usual, Rooney’s strikes meant that he broke another record by becoming the youngest goal-scorer in the history of the European Championship.
Rooney replicated the performance in the final group game against Croatia, grabbing another two goals in a dominant 4-2 victory to seal England’s place in the quarterfinals. This meant that going into the knockout round, Rooney was the leading goal-scorer and performer in the tournament with four goals and three man of the match accolades.
Sadly for the striker and his national team, he was injured midway through the first half of the quarterfinal against Portugal. England would be knocked out on penalties without their influential front man to lead the line.
Rooney’s breakout performances at the European Championship, especially against Croatia, meant that he was suddenly the hottest player in world football. Eriksson stated that he couldn’t “remember anyone making such an impact since Pelé at the 1958 World Cup,” while Steven Gerrard said that the young forward “on current form…is the best player in Europe.”
After years of watching South American superstars, the English finally had a candidate for not just the best player in the world, but also potentially the best player ever.
The Aftermath
Despite serious interest from footballing behemoths like Chelsea and Real Madrid, not for the first nor last time, Rooney eventually decided to capitalise on his potential by trading Everton for Manchester United later that summer. In a fee that would eventually be worth around £27 million, the highest ever for a teenager at that point, Alex Ferguson landed “the best young player this country has seen in the past 30 years.”
Everton only received £20 million of that fee unconditionally, although they would eventually receive the rest as Rooney’s performance-based bonuses kicked in over the years. All in all, he has won the Premier League five times, the FA Cup once, the Champions League once, the League Cup twice, the Community Shield four times, and the FIFA Club World Cup once.
All while becoming the record holder for goals scored, and captain, for both England and Manchester United.
Despite the trophy-laden nature of Ferguson’s reign at Old Trafford, that is a very serious haul of achievements. Rooney has been at the heart of everything great that Manchester United have achieved in the last 13 years, and yet there is a sense that he has had to compromise to taste that success.
While players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez and Robin van Persie have come, uncompromisingly dominated and left, Rooney continues to toil away wherever the team needs him – whether that’s on the left wing or the base of midfield. Rooney was supposed to be the revolution that changed English football, not the magician that was subdued by the constraints of English football.
Perhaps the best description of what Rooney could’ve been comes from Colin Harvey’s assessment of the striker’s performance during the summer of 2004. Asked whether he could find any criticisms about the forward’s performances in the group stage of the competition, Harvey responded that perhaps it is a slight worry that Rooney tends to favour his right foot more when shooting.
However, this came with the conduit that Rooney was such a brilliantly natural talent, that the use of his left foot would come organically to him if he wanted it.
There is a lot to be said about what Rooney has achieved, and even what he could achieve in the time he has left at the top. However, even his most blinded supporters could not claim that the modern incarnation of Rooney would be able to significantly change his game without much effort. Perhaps that is why he will always remain one of the most disappointing legends of the game – he promised to be Eriksson’s “complete player,” but only turned out to be a great one.
