Brian Glanville
Rooney’s unfulfilled talent
It was a bitter irony that Wayne Rooney’s salient international career moment was frustrated by a crude Portuguese tackle in the 2004 European Championship quarter-finals in Lisbon. Till then Rooney seemed to be reaching the crescendo of his talent; the greatest seen of an English player since the doomed Paul Gascoigne.
Now, with a record number of goals and a great profusion of caps, he has decided to retire from international football, returning to his local Everton team for which he had once been a sensationally precocious debutant. He had been only 16 when coming on at Goodison Park as a substitute against Arsenal and winning the match with a shot of phenomenal power and accuracy.
Sven Goran Eriksson, then England’s manager, ignored the cautious pleas of the Everton manager David Moyes and picked Rooney as a 17-year-old, first as a substitute against Australia and tiny Liechtenstein, then in a European qualifier against Turkey.
For much of that game England were having very much the worst of it against a gifted Turkish side and were holding out with difficulty. It was Rooney who transformed things, not only as a striker but as an inspiration in midfield, winning the ball, sometimes even juggling with it, transforming an England team which ended with a 2-0 victory. Rooney went on to play splendidly in the finals the following year, the motor and architect of the English side, head and shoulders above every other England player, though even he could not save them in their opener against France when Eriksson’s negative tactics proved fatal. Against Switzerland, Rooney became the youngest player, at 18 years and seven months, to score in a European finals when he headed a goal. He would score again afterwards, remarking modestly: “I just go out to do well for the team.”
Against Croatia he scored two more goals, which made Croatian coach Otto Baric remark: “A very good player but not a phenomenon. There are at least 10 players in Europe who can stop him” – to which Eriksson rejoined: “I don’t know who they are.” He then added Portugal wouldn’t want him as opposition in the quarter-final. But Portugal it would be and Rooney, alas, was doomed.
In Lisbon after 27 minutes Rooney, already in fine form, was kicked in a tackle by Jorge Andrade and left the field with a broken bone in his foot. England would eventually succumb on penalties.
This was arguably the apex of Rooney’s international career although there were so many caps and goals to follow. In Germany in the 2006 tournament he was shamefully exploited by Eriksson. Still recovering from a metatarsal injury, it had been assumed by his United manager Alex Ferguson that were he to play at all it would be only at the second stage of the tournament. Instead Eriksson irresponsibly threw him into England’s game against Trinidad & Tobago in
Nuremberg. He came on for the last half hour. Against Sweden, Rooney lasted for 69 minutes largely marked by frustration. One saw the real gifted Rooney in the subsequent game versus Ecuador, in which he lasted the full match despite being alone up front.
So to the quarter-final against Portugal in which Rooney, alas perhaps predictably and inevitably, finally did explode. He would last just an hour. Provoked by the Portuguese centre-back Ricardo Carvalho, he stamped on his opponent’s groin and off he went.
Later, in a bad tempered game in the Balkans, he would get himself expelled again, against Montenegro, and missed a couple of matches in the subsequent European finals. Of his tremendous talents there was never any doubt, but he was hardly a role model on or off the field for aspiring youngsters.