So… You know what upsets me? The English media… In 2009, Ronaldo left for Real, Tevez left for City… and Rooney was left behind to hold it all together… but thanks to those god damn paparazzi, throughout the summer, all anyone could talk about was his weight… it was straight up schoolyard bullying… but, come on, by then they had to know he would make them swallow their words… I mean, yes, the guy had a drinking problem, he had a hard time staying out of trouble and no, his physique wasn’t what you’d expect from a footballer… but that wasn’t news, that man had one of the most unconventional builds in the sport and that’s what made him so scary… At 16 years old, when he was brought in to play for Everton against Arsenal’s Invincibles, even Henry had to take a step back… he had heard the rumours, “the greatest wonderkid in England’s history”. .
. 114 goals in 29 matches for Everton’s under-11s, he had joined their under-19s at the age of 14, he had just single handedly carried Everton to the FA Youth Cup final… but when Henry first saw him, he said he could not believe that was a teenager, he had the appearance of a 24 year old and they knew that was no normal kid…on his debut, he had grabbed an assist against Tottenham as their fans shouted “who are ya” from the stands… 2 weeks earlier, he had scored a brace in the space of 7 minutes… and still, that day, with the match tied, the kid stepped onto the pitch and in his own words, thought: “If I get a chance, I’m shooting… I’m shooting from anywhere”. .
. and by the time he sent the ball in from 25 yards out, ending Arsenal's 30 match unbeaten run and making him the Premier League’s youngest ever goalscorer as the commentator told everyone to: “remember the name, Wayne Rooney”… he had every Everton fan convinced, that after 15 years in the gutter, he was the chosen one… to bring them back to the glory days… and who could blame them? Even if only hours after the match, he would be spotted having a kick about with his mates in the middle of the street… even if he’d show up to take the award for BBC’s Young Sportsman Of The Year with his shirt undone and chewing gum… by the end of November, he had Everton 3 points off of the top of the league table, seemingly ready to take their first Champions League spot in over 30 years… so, by January, they made him one of the highest paid teenagers in the world, with a contract only rivaled by Saviola and Javier Portilla… and a month later, he was already playing for England, again, the youngest ever… Even if, by the end of the season, Everton had been controversially denied an european spot while Southampton and Man City, who both finished below them, were still handed a golden ticket… Rooney had been racking up goal contributions at rates similar to those of world class players like Shearer, Bergkamp and Michael Owen … At 17, he was already such an established name in the league, that once he got dropped to bench following 13 goalless matches, he legitimately had fans talking about the “old Wayne” like he was some veteran… but there was no need to worry, one way or the other, by the end of that season, he was Everton’s top scorer… even more impressive, he was being offered the most lucrative contract in the history of the club, a 400% increase that would make him one of the highest paid players in the league at 18 years of age… and even then, wisely, he made them wait for his decision until the end of the summer because first, it was time for the Euros, and guess what?
As Rooney walked into the tournament, the headlines were split between two things… his age… and his weight… but then, the kid some publications dared to call a “fatty”, terrorized the great Lilian Thuram in the opening match, scored twice against Switzerland in the second to become the youngest goalscorer in the tournament’s history and then ran it back again versus Croatia, with a goal from outside the box, another at the end of a 50 yard run and even an assist… suddenly, “Roomania” took over the country… the fatty was now “the new pelé”, “the final piece of the golden generation”, “the player of the tournament”. . .
so much so that even after he went out with a broken foot only 23 minutes into the knockouts, watching England get eliminated as he laid in an hospital bed, he’d still make it to the team of the tournament, only 1 goal short of the golden boot… but as his market value doubled overnight, so did the media persecution… Forget the claims about his weight, now they were digging up any dirt they could find which, considering Rooney wasn’t exactly an angel, that wasn't hard at all… suddenly, he was on the cover of every tabloid being accused of frequenting certain places where you pay for certain bedroom activities, he was being accused of hitting his girlfriend, though… to be fair, he would win a defamation lawsuit over that one… all while he rejected Everton’s colossal contract offer, inundating the club with transfer bids… he was so big, he had Real Madrid presidential candidate Arturo Baldasano using the promise of his signing to promote his campaign, he had Sir Bobby Robson and Sir Alex Ferguson going head to head… with every offer, the price rose further and further and in the end, against the wishes of the board and according to the media, against any form of common sense… only a year after making CR7 the most expensive teenager in the league’s history, Sir Alex broke the record again… making Rooney the most expensive… in the history of the sport… 37 million euros… almost twice as much as Ronaldo and enough to pay off all of Everton’s debt… after a decade of financial trouble… even up to the of this current season, only two under-18s have been more expensive than that… it was one of the most outrageous transfers of all time and if he was gonna prove himself worthy, he would have to prove that as Sir Alex said, he was “the best young player this country had seen in 30 years… a player who made their squad as strong as the treble winners of 99”. . .
and, incredibly… those doubts did not last long… Less than a month later, on his debut, playing in the Champions League, Rooney smacked in his first goal 17 minutes in, then hit another from outside the box only 11 minutes later and finished it off with a nasty free kick to make it a hat trick plus an assist… if a year earlier, Ronaldo had George Best calling his debut “the most exciting he’d ever seen”. . .
Rooney had blown that standard out of the water, with arguably the greatest club debut of all time… by the turn of the year, the 18 year old who’d spent half the season playing for a mid table club, was 8th in the Ballon D’Or and only then did he start stepping on the gas… 9 goal contributions over his next 10 appearances… goals against Liverpool, goals in the Manchester derby, two absolute stunners against Middlesbrough, with one of them being named BBC’s Goal of the season… and by the summer, he was the PFA Young Player Of The Year and United’s top scorer, despite sharing a locker room with CR7, Van Nistelrooy, Diego Forlan and Solskjaer… his only problem had been the lack of silverware, but well… they gave him one more year and after bumping his numbers up to 29 goal contributions… he made sure to score twice in the final of the League Cup, lifting his first trophy and convincing everyone he would lead England to glory at the world cup, even Diego Maradona came out saying that “he could do for England what I did for Argentina”. . .
but before the season ended… he broke his foot, a second time… Sven Goran Eriksson insisted on bringing him on regardless, claiming that “if you have a center back who’s not ready, you can take the other but where could you ever find another Rooney”. . .
though truthfully, it was all a disaster… It wasn't until the knockouts that he managed to finally play a full 90 and the very next match… well… Rooney stepped studs first into Ricardo Carvalho’s private area and, out of nowhere, Ronaldo was running to the referee asking for a red card, Rooney was pushing him around, not able to believe his club teammate was doing that and worse, once he did get sent off… Ronaldo was caught winking at the bench… all hell had been let loose… By the time the supposed “greatest teenage duo in the world” had gotten back to Manchester, Ronaldo had become public enemy number one and Rooney had cemented himself in everyone’s eyes as just a crazed out hooligan who couldn’t keep his composure or even keep fit… as many blamed his 10 game goalless streak at the start of the season on the baseless allegations that he had gone into the world cup against doctor’s orders and then completely disregarded any form of physiotherapy… the hate was so intense that Rooney would admit that, at the time, he would “just lock himself away and drink for two days straight”. . .
which only makes it even more unbelievable that after he finally broke through with a hat trick against Bolton… he’d gather up enough speed to get up to 23 goals and 14 assists by the end of the season, the exact same tally as CR7… as the two completely flipped the public’s opinion around, leading United to the Premier League title… However, if at that point, it was already Ronaldo who was swooping every award… to say that he was even more overshadowed the following season, doesn’t even do it justice… On the very first matchday, Rooney broke his foot a third time and though, for a second, it seemed like nothing happened, as he came back with a streak of 11 goal contributions in 7 matches… then, it was his ankle that gave out… and by the new year’s, not only had England catastrophically missed out on qualification for the euros, but he had watched Ronaldo step up to the Ballon D’Or podium, while he barely got any votes…. With every month that went by, with every Champions League round… with rumours spreading that this time the injuries had done irreversible damage to his game… as much as Rooney tried to come back to his best, he’d always end up looking like a side character on the Ronaldo show… and once he watched his team lift the greatest trophy in Europe while he sat on the bench, you could tell, deep down, that was not how he imagined the greatest day of his career would go down… mere hours later, his coach Mick Clegg would find him sobbing at the hotel bar… and when asked why, all he said was: “That was s***…I was s***… I’m so f****** disappointed”. .
. and the worst is that he did get a second chance… and still… nothing… That very same summer, Rooney was immediately spotted smoking while out on his honeymoon… once back, he went down with a virus and ended up spending a good chunk of those first 3 months trying to make a full recovery and even once he did… showing up with a player of the tournament performance at the Club World Cup… well… just a week later, he was limping off the pitch with another injury… again, even with Ronaldo on the downturn, supposedly upset that the club had stopped his transfer to Real Madrid… as much as Rooney kept showing up in every Champions League round, Ronaldo would one-up every time with one freakish goal after the other… but finally, once they lost out on their chance to take over europe for a second year in a row… things changed… Ronaldo got his world record move and whether he wanted to or not… the next season, Rooney would have to take over… but then, it happened… After another summer of debauchery, Rooney’s body was stamped all over the tabloids… they called him “Shrek”, “Captain Fatso”. .
. he was the punching bag of an entire country… pundits were saying out loud that “Rooney doesn’t have the guts to steer the ship”. .
. but then slowly, they were forced to think before they speak… one goal at a time, Rooney slowly found the kind of aggression we hadn't seen from him in years… 11 goal contributions in 11 games around Christmas… and then… woah… against Hull City, Rooney scored 4 goals in a match for the first time in his career and by April, there had been only 2 matches in which he did not score… 5 days after that Hull City game, he scored the winner… in the league cup semi final… on injury time… against Man City… 3 matches later, he scored 2 headers against AC Milan, then 2 more against West Ham and another in the league cup final to take the trophy… all while standing at 5 foot 9… then, in the second leg, 2 more to make it 4 goals against AC Milan… 2 weeks after that, a winner against Liverpool as Steven Gerrard himself referred to him as “the best player in the world” and finally… a goal away at Bayern in the Champions League semi finals… 18 goals in 13 games and now, not even Messi or Ronaldo could match up to his tally of 30 goals since the start of the season… All Rooney needed was a good match in their second leg against Bayern and with United already at the top of the table, he was on his way to defy every critic and come out of this season with 3 trophies in his bag… the only problem? Well… in that Bayern match, again, he came out limping… a week later, he surprisingly lined up against them, literally playing through injury but though, in the 55 minutes he managed to hold himself together, he did get an assist… he watched United concede from the bench as they went out on away goals… even worse, over the 2 weeks he was out, his teammates dropped 4 points in just 2 games and in the blink of an eye, all progress was lost… the Premier League title went to Chelsea and not even the PFA Player Of The Year award could drown his sorrows… At this point, there was at least that glimmer of hope of maybe reaching a Ballon D’Or podium but well… it was a World Cup year and with Rooney injured and being forced to play second striker to Jermaine Defoe, he’d quickly be out of the tournament, with a couple of nasty words shouted towards a camera being his main highlight, which meant that… as usual, the media was unforgiving once it was leaked that he had attempted to pay some second rate celebrities for “certain favors” while his wife was 5 months pregnant… so, by the time he made it back to Manchester, with the media on his tail and Rooney wisely anticipating that with the Glazer family leading the club soon they “wouldn’t be able to compete at the highest level”.
. . he demanded to be put on the transfer list… It was absolute pandemonium… even Sir Alex seemed completely out of words as he tried to explain to the fans that their best player had just decided to quit the team and that was before the biggest of bombshells reached the papers… Following their recent takeover by Sheik Mansour… Rooney’s plan was to join Manchester City… In the words of second coach, René Meulensteen: “If Barcelona had come in, he might have understood… but Sir Alex was not gonna lose a battle of prestige against them”.
. . and man, I don’t know what he said to Rooney but 4 days later, he was signing a 5 year contract renewal… but still, as the great man would one day write: “there would forever be a residue of mistrust”.
. . and that clearly got to Rooney’s head… With two more injuries cutting off his momentum and being made to play second striker to Berbatov, by January, even if he had 9 assists in only 15 starts… Rooney did not have a single open play goal to his name and so, in the year of what had likely been the best season of his career, he did not even get a nominated to the Ballon D’Or… but thankfully, that wasn’t the end… with weeks left until the start of the Champions League knockout stage, Rooney did pick back his form with that bicycle kick against Manchester City… which earned him a Puskas award nomination… and from that day on out, he scored or assisted in every single Champions League round… but while his goal against Blackburn was enough to secure United the league title… the one he scored against Barcelona in the Champions League final was not… not even close… in fact, it was his team’s only shot on target… No matter what, Rooney did not stop there, determined to keep pushing, he went into the following season with 10 goal contributions in his first 5 games, including a hat trick in an 8-2 demolition of Arsenal… carrying that form right up till the Ballon D’Or voting closed and astonishingly grabbing his highest ever placing in the rankings… 5th, behind only Ronaldo, Messi, Xavi and Iniesta… I legitimately believe that could have taken over as the definitive greatest season of his career… he scored three against Chelsea and Arsenal, two against Tottenham, Liverpool and City… 25 goal contributions in the 23 matches up to the final day of the season but even after scoring another goal then and there… well… you all know it, Aguero came out of nowhere in the final minute… and from 4 miles away, he stole the trophy right out of their hands… sending Old Trafford into absolute silence and completely breaking Rooney’s spirit… 10 years later, he’d still be talking about it, insisting the match had been fixed… and it was on that day, at only 26, that the downfall started… After a tragic Euro 2012, he’d have his own manager claiming that he “only plays well for Manchester”.
. .
