I WANT WAYNE TO HANG UP HIS BOOTS
America would welcome him with open arms but that’s no way to end a glorious career...
It was in the aftermath of England’s friendly at Dortmund a year ago that the brutal reality of being wayne Rooney was driven home.
Lukas Podolski had scored the only goal of his 130th and last game for Germany and the celebration of his accomplishments seemingly knew no limits. there was a televised This is
Your Life style show from a studio inside the westfalenstadion and manager Joachim Low paid such a moving tribute that it was impossible not to ask why Rooney — already deposed from the England ranks, 18 months after becoming their greatest goalscorer — had never been so loved. Gareth southgate sensed a political minefield.
‘It helps if you have won world Cups and European Championships doesn’t it?’ he replied. ‘and you can’t always predict when the end is coming for people.’
How prescient those words have proved to be. Dropped by club and country in the space of 18 days last year, with Jose Mourinho too sour to extend public congratulations on him becoming Manchester United’s all-time top scorer, it transpires that even the Goodison Park refuge Rooney sought last summer was an illusion.
so much for #welcomehomewayne and that imaginative 60-second Everton film that went viral, capturing his walk through the corridors of the club, to the soundtrack of some of his most famous Everton moments.
so he finds himself back where this wretched last 18 months began, weighing up where to go next and concluding, it emerged last night, that DC United — the side currently propping up the MLs Eastern Conference and who tried to sign him last summer — will be where he next lays his hat.
to which any who have been captivated by his genius, his toil and his fundamental humanity will surely say: ‘Don’t do this, wayne. It’s time to hang up your boots and call it a day. Just let go now.’
somehow, the discussion about his fading powers always gravitates back to his ‘refuelling habits’ (to cite Graham taylor’s description of Paul Gascoigne extracurricular activities), to a sense of unfulfilled promised and the two fat contracts in seven years that Rooney wrang out of United.
there is a little more to it than that for the 32-year- old. It is his misfortune that this decline has coincided with a new age of football longevity. Cristiano Ronaldo, at 33 just eight months older than him, electrifies. Franck Ribery, 35, signs a 12-month contract extension at Bayern Munich. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, 36, is an instant United states hit for La Galaxy.
the inconvenient truth is that Rooney is not built like any of them. sir alex Ferguson, the manager who has known him better than any, often alluded to his metabolism, observing in an interview marking his eclipse of sir Bobby Charlton’s goal record last year that Rooney and Ryan Giggs were simply made differently.
Ferguson observed: ‘Ryan was built like that. wayne’s got a different physique. He’s stocky; well made. Players age in different ways.’
that observation is relevant to any notion of Rooney disappearing off to play in the Us — because behind it is not quite the benign environment it might seem and Rooney no more possesses a wanderlust than steven Gerrard ever did, when he headed west to Los angeles three years ago.
the Us language and the lifestyle offer something China does not. But a conversation with one franchise owner reveals that the league, with its long-haul away games and range of climates, offers no home comforts for Rooney. ‘He wouldn’t find it easy,’ says the source.
Gerrard, when he called time on the experience after two seasons, reflected: ‘Going on the road, playing on artificial turf, playing at altitude, playing in humidity, those are the hurdles that I’ve had to face that I wasn’t aware of. Every away game has a different challenge.’
the life Gerrard described in Los angeles, having left his wife and daughters behind on Merseyside to join the Galaxy, sounded nothing less than lonely at times. the notion of uprooting three young sons cannot seem alluring for Rooney, though the events in alderley Edge which landed him in stockport Magistrates Court last winter demonstrated that the consequences can be incendiary when the sobering influence of Mrs Rooney is not at hand.
It is all so different for the 35-plus brigade, whose battery of fitness solutions has given them alternatives. Ibrahimovic has longserving physio, Italian Dario Fort, who has worked with him in Milan, Paris and Manchester.
Ronaldo has his cryotherapy chamber and swimming pools. Gareth Barry, 37, has followed Giggs into yoga.
But these solutions do not work for everyone. Rob swire, physiotherapist at Manchester United for 23 years until 2014, said: ‘If a player is weak at the end of the muscular range they are stretching and holding, it can worsen injuries. It doesn’t suit everybody.’
Rooney is not without alternatives. His brief television appearances this season have demonstrated his appeal, while his
managers these past few years consistently describe an intelligence which make coaching a more realistic option than it once seemed.
Both are certainly preferable to the twilight journey Gascoigne embarked upon, having taken his own talents to Everton in 2000.
The plan, Gascoigne reflected years later, was to ‘end my career there at the top, aged 35, still playing in the Premier League’.
Yet he instead found himself surplus to Everton’s requirement, washing around the second tier at Burnley, on the promise of a share of gate receipts if the team went up. Then, having rejected a derisory offer from DC United, heading to China to play for Giansu Tianma.
‘The Sars virus had started, all their football games were off,’ Gascoigne related. ‘So I came home and never went back. They still owe me money.’
The symmetries make this a salutary tale for Rooney. Both are individuals who touched the heights; lit up the game. Both are entitled to be remembered for better.