15 WAYNE ROONEY
A “modern-day footballing genius”, Rooney has been revitalised since moving Stateside. By Neill Collins
Back in the summer of 2002, after my first night spent training with Scottish Second Division club Dumbarton, my phone rang. A journalist told me that Queen’s Park, who I had left a week previously, had just been demolished 7-1 by David Moyes’ Everton in a pre-season match at Hampden Park.
The scoreline wasn’t a complete surprise when you consider the might of an English Premier League outfit going up against a newly relegated team in the lowest tier of Scottish football. What was surprising was the fact that an unknown 16-year-old had run amok. He had scored four of the seven goals.
Fast-forward three months and it wasn’t a bunch of part-timers that were being taken to task, but England goalkeeper David Seaman. Wayne Rooney, five days before his 17th birthday, announced himself to the world with a last-minute winner from almost 30 yards against Arsenal at Goodison Park.
Those four goals in a defeat of Queen’s Park suddenly made sense. Rooney was built like a heavyweight boxer with the power and the speed of a sprinter, and he had footballing ability to go with it. Watching him destroy defenders made me realise that, had I encountered him at that stage in my career, he would have thrown me around like a wet tracksuit.
A couple of years later, I moved south of the border to Sunderland in the Championship. Despite my own progression from university graduate to professional footballer, there wasn’t a young player in the UK who could match Rooney’s stellar rise. He became one of the most exciting young talents in world football, and
almost single-handedly drove England to the Euro 2004 quarter-finals before succumbing to injury. It was no surprise when Alex Ferguson broke the bank to take him to Manchester United.
Over the following decade, I watched on as a fan as Rooney developed into an integral part of one of the most successful periods in Manchester United’s history. Champagne moments litter his career: a hat-trick on his Champions League debut, wonder goals, personal accolades, last-minute winners and title-clinchers... and an overhead kick against the noisy neighbours.
I managed to stay off the list of centre-backs that he bullied and outmanoeuvred until 2016, when finally our paths crossed.
I was part of the Sheffield United team to face Louis van Gaal’s Red Devils at Old Trafford in the third round of the FA Cup. Rooney was no longer the same player that had exploded onto the scene 14 years earlier, but he had become an astute goalscorer often deployed in central midfield.
I found myself up against a Rooney more reliant on nous, experience and technical ability than the raw physical attributes of his early career.
I kept him quiet for 89 minutes as he laboured with a weaker supporting cast than he’d been accustomed to. At one point, I let him know I was there with a sly knee to the thigh while the ball was down the other end of the pitch. Rooney replied with a verbal volley as impressive as one of his actual volleys. Unfortunately the game doesn’t last 89 minutes, and in the final minute he slotted home a penalty to seal a 1-0 win.
His powers may have been on the decline, but he nonetheless finished that week with two more goals at St James’ Park on the Wednesday and a winner at Anfield on the Sunday. The sign of a truly great player is always finding a way to get the job done.
Although our careers don’t share much in common, Wayne has followed me to the USA. While he plies his trade in MLS – still scoring goals and creating moments of magic – I manage the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the second-tier USL.
His impact in a short time with DC United has been nothing short of mesmerising. Rooney revitalised a team from the lower end of the table, taking them into the end-of-season play-offs.
It hasn’t just been Rooney’s goals that have caught the eye, but his boundless energy, as if he’s somehow managed to turn the clock back to the early-2000s. A lung-bursting run in stoppage time to retrieve the ball with a slide tackle and then deliver a pinpoint cross for a last-minute winner against Orlando last season is a case in point. He’s an all-time great goalscorer, but still a team man at heart.
Our teams faced off during pre-season and I felt only slightly safer in the technical area as my players took on the raging bull. There weren’t any more off-the-ball cheap shots or verbal jousts – simply a handshake and a nod of appreciation from myself to a modern-day footballing genius.
“A TRULY GREAT PLAYER ALWAYS FINDS A WAY TO GET THE JOB DONE”