ROONEY READY TO MAKE UP THIS TIME
It has been 10 years since the Three Lions' captain last won a knockout game at a major tournament.
Wayne Rooney does not look back in anger at his previous tournaments with England, but there is certainly an exasperated air of frustration whenever the scars of Portugal, Germany, South Africa, Poland/Ukraine and Brazil are brought up.
It is a long list, more akin to a backpackers' travelog than a footballer's tale of woe, but aside from the flash of excitement generated by a teenaged Rooney at Euro 2004, the England captain has little to smile about.
Indeed, such has been the narrative of high hopes and low blows, even the lighthearted moments are rooted in disappointment.
“I remember in the last Euros, in the penalty shootout against Italy,” Rooney recalled as he reflected on his tournament history at England's Les Fontaines media centre in Chantilly. “I always know which way I'm going with my penalties and (Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi) Buffon was actually pointing and telling me he knows I'm going that way.
“He was right, so then I started wondering if I should go the other way. I ended up the going the same way, but he dived the other way.”
Rooney, at least, can claim not to have missed in a penalty shoot-out for England, but as Roy Hodgson's team prepares for the knock-out stages of Euro 2016, and a second round tie against Iceland in Nice next Monday, the spectre of another shoot- out hangs over the squad.
It has now become something of a self- fulfilling prophecy. England fail in shoot- outs, the subject is raised on a daily basis, they practise penalties and, well, everyone knows how the story usually ends.
Rather than speak about ‘doing the business over ninety minutes,' England's players allow themselves to be dragged into the debate about practising penalties or otherwise.
Rooney admits that penalties are practised almost daily at England's Stade de Bourgognes, but the 30-yearold sees a bigger picture, insisting that the time has come for the players to aim high and achieve.
Having played in five major tournaments for his country, Rooney has won just one knock-out tie – a second round victory against Ecuador in 2006 – and he admits that sorry record needs to change. THE INDEPENDENT the European Union, and Harry Kane was much more prepared to talk about taking corners than Brexit.
“I've not really thought too much about it yet,” Kane claimed, when asked his views on the outcome of the referendum. “I'm focused on the Euros. I will wait and see what happens.”
Such is life in the England bubble in Chantilly at Euro 2016. The only European exit troubling the minds of Roy Hodgson's players is that which they are attempting to avoid when facing Iceland in Nice on Monday.
But despite the Football Association having made provisions for each member of the England squad to vote by post or proxy in the ref- to admit that the issue was the subject of ‘a brief chat at the dinner table when we unwind.'
What has been, perhaps, the most significant event in the country's history since the end of the Second World War has, ultimately, become little more than a question for Hodgson's players to briefed about to ensure that they do not dip their toe too deeply into unfamiliar waters.
Football is the only focus, with only Dr Steve Peters, the sport psychologist attached to the England squad, knowing whether the absence of free- thinking off the pitch compromises freethinking on it. THE INDEPENDENT