When Wayne Rooney broke through in the early 2000s, the general feeling was that he could
do anything. His first steps in professional football were defined by magic moments and
game-changing performances. His first Premier League goal was a thunderbolt winner for Everton
against Arsenal. He scored a hat-trick on his debut for Manchester United in the Champions
League. And at Euro 2004, his first international tournament, he was England’s star player.
All of this happened while Rooney was still a teenager. The football world was his oyster.
He went on to win everything there was to win at club level and became England’s all-time
record goal scorer, but – as he winds down his playing career at Derby County – many
continue to ask the question: Did he truly fulfil his potential?
After that sensational strike against Arsenal, Rooney gradually established himself as a
regular with Everton. David Moyes used him as a second striker in a 4-4-1-1 system, usually
operating behind a more direct outlet, such as Tomasz Radzinski or Kevin Campbell.
He took on the same role for England at Euro 2004. England played some wonderful football
that summer, with quick passing, lots of movement and interplay between the attackers. Rooney
was at the heart of it, scoring goals and combining with Michael Owen, running in behind
or going short and playing lay-offs to intelligent midfield runners in Paul Scholes and Frank
Lampard.
He was the exact type of all-round attacking talent a previously functional England side
had been missing. Two months later, Manchester United paid £25 million pounds to sign him.
Rooney took time to play his best football consistently at Old Trafford. Manchester United’s
attack was still built around Ruud van Nistelrooy, a prolific penalty box striker who depended
on quality supply. Sometimes Rooney started just behind the Dutchman, sometimes he started
out wide before drifting infield to help build-up, but eye-catching interplay between the pair
was limited.
Things changed when Van Nistelrooy left in 2006, as Sir Alex Ferguson built a faster,
more fluid attack, though again Rooney wasn’t the star of the show. Rather, it was Cristiano
Ronaldo’s time in the spotlight. Over the three years that followed, Rooney
proved himself an outstanding team player. This was seen tactically as Ferguson entrusted
him with key defensive responsibilities for big games, namely tracking the overlapping
runs of opposition full-backs.
But it wasn’t until Ronaldo joined Real Madrid that Rooney became Manchester United’s
main man. But rather than simply biding his time and taking the vacancy as and when it
appeared, he modified his game to fill what would otherwise have been a glaring void in
the team’s attacking output. Before, Ronaldo or Van Nistelrooy were United’s penalty
box targets – now, Rooney was the primary recipient.
Prior to 2009, the highest share of Rooney’s open play goals for Manchester United that
came from headers was 8.3 per cent. But in his first campaign leading the line, it skyrocketed
to 22.7 per cent. Furthermore, 100 per cent of his goals that season came inside the penalty
area. Previously an all-rounder who could play between the lines, open up defences,
score superlative goals and defend diligently, he was finally showcasing his potency as a
predator.
Rooney’s increased aerial threat and penalty box prowess were continuing themes even as
Ferguson paired him with other strikers, be it the mercurial Dimitar Berbatov, the lightning-quick
Javier Hernandez or fellow all-rounder Robin van Persie. However, as he entered his late
20s his athletic capability declined. Injuries didn’t help him, though Ferguson
did mention fitness issues in his autobiography, referencing his Rooney’s body type and also
his wide feet. “If he missed a couple of weeks...it could take him four or five games
to get his sharpness back,” Ferguson. “In my final year, I felt he was struggling to
get by people and had lost some of his old thrust.”
As a teenager, Rooney had been a physical phenomenon. He combined speed with unnatural
strength and stamina, all of which would help him in his different roles at Manchester United
– tracking back when deployed on the wing, attacking space on rapid counter-attacks alongside
Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez, or getting behind defences, running the channels and holding
off defenders as more of an out-and-out Number 9. When those stamina reserves and that initial
burst of pace left him, he was no longer the same dynamic attacking threat, nor was he
as defensively dependable. By the latter stages of his career at top
level, Rooney was the type of player a team needed to make allowances for. He was still
capable of changing games with a shot or a pass, only now he required faster, more energetic
players alongside him to cover his shortfalls. Gradually he dropped deeper, ending up in
central midfield for Manchester United’s 2016 FA Cup final win, a position that indulged
his desire to get on the ball and play long, often looping diagon al passes.
Rooney continued in a midfield role when he returned to Everton. He did the same with
England at Euro 2016, though by then he appeared crowbarred into a side that no longer really
needed him thanks to the rise of younger attacking talents such as Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling
and Dele Alli. In truth, the height of Rooney’s England
career came when he was just 18 years old. After Euro 2004, a combination of unfortunate
circumstances and untimely fitness problems hampered his chances of performing his best
in a major finals.
He carried injuries into the World Cups of 2006 and 2010, was suspended for the start
of Euro 2012, and England failed to reach the previous Euros in 2008. It wasn’t until
the 2014 World Cup that he got another good run-out at an international tournament. By
then, however, he was past his physical prime and England struggled to fit him into a cohesive
system. An inability to build on Euro 2004 and lead
England to success no doubt impacted Rooney’s reputation. He was also unfortunate in that
he emerged at the exact same time as Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, two of the greatest players
in the game’s history. Their performances over-shadowed his both in terms of ceiling
and longevity – while Rooney sees out his playing career in England’s second division,
their productivity has continued at the highest level of European football.
That context is important, though. There was nothing Rooney could do about the greatness
of his contemporaries, nor his national team’s decline or dysfunction. And in spite of his
fitness issues, he did something most top prospects couldn’t, enjoying a long spell
at the highest echelons of the game and winning everything at club level.
Like all great athletes, his career involved markedly different phases. He played multiple
roles in several title-winning Manchester United sides, showing versatility and a willingness
to adapt. He also proved himself a real team player, sacrificing himself so others could
shine and never shirking his defensive duties despite being one of the world’s most gifted
attackers. On top of all that, he produced genuine moments of quality that will linger
in the memory long after his retirement.