 |
| Rooney a Legend? Not for me |
Following the news that England's all time leading goal scorer is hanging up his International boots I'd like to put into words why I don't consider the Everton striker to be an England Legend. This is mostly about his England career not his club one.
I accept that it's an odd thing to not think the countries top goal scorer isn't a legend for his country but it's deeper than that. I think we get lost in this idea that numbers are the be all and end all and to an extent they are but it only takes a few minutes to look into those numbers and form an opinion on them. Let's got back a few years before we do that though.
Rooney up to and including Euro 2004
When Wayne Rooney broke onto the scene at Everton I don't deny he was a very exciting prospect, he was a rough striker that had no respect for anyone he came up against and that's a good thing. He was powerful and had the technique to score goals, the famous one against Arsenal is a great strike no denying that. England fans were well within their rights to be excited about this young lad. He broke into the England set up under Sven-Göran Eriksson and became a mainstay. He lit Euro 2004 up and arguably was England's best player at that tournament. If he'd not got injured who knows what might have happened. We could have gone on to win it had we not lost infamously on penalties to Portugal. After that summer's exploits Rooney got his move to Manchester United which was fairly deserved in my opinion. Big club who at the time were rebuilding after losing the title to Arsenal's invincibles.
The next 2 years and World Cup 2006
After his move to Manchester United Rooney was arguably the first name on an England team sheet and to be fair that was probably justifiable. He was the form striker heading into the World Cup in Germany and although he went into it injured there were a lot of hopes pinned on him. We all hoped he could produce the kind of explosive displays he put in in Portugal 2 years before. He didn't. His biggest impact was getting sent of stupidly against Portugal in the quarter final. Yeah you can blame Ronaldo all you want but Rooney was daft and paid the price. He had no positive impact on that campaign and that was for me a key turning point in Rooney's international career.
The next 4 years
Now to be fair to Rooney it's not his fault the FA decided to replace Sven-Göran Eriksson with Steve McClaren, a man handed the best group of England players since 1990 and failed to qualify for Euro 2008 in Austria/Switzerland. I believe under a decent managed England would have gone close in that tournament. Rooney arguably was in his best shape and just a year or so out from his peak. We'll never know what he could have done at Euro 2008 so it's unfair to judge him too much in this period.
The prime year and South Africa
The 2009/10 season was for me Wayne Rooney's best. He did score one more goal 2 seasons later in 2011/12 but in 2010 I'd say Rooney was England's best striker by a distance. There was no reason at all for him to not go out to South Africa and perform. Of course it isn't all down to him but he was one of the senior players, he was at his peak and he was in red hot form. He was dreadful, again not alone in this at all but this was another tournament he hadn't performed in and it was a major disappointment. For me I remember after England's humiliating 4-1 defeat to Germany thinking that if players like Rooney couldn't perform in a tournament like that after the season he'd had when would he?
A stupid red card and Euro 2012
The 7th of October 2011 for me summed Wayne Rooney's England career up. A daft red card against Montenegro in the last qualifier before the tournament meant he'd initially miss all three group games of the competition. Deserved in my opinion, a needless act of idiocy just like the stamp in 2006. He hadn't leant 5&1/2 years on. It was reduced on a appeal to two which for me was very lucky and this meant that now manager Roy Hodgson could justify taking him to Poland/Ukraine. England did ok without him, a very creditable draw with a good French team and a belting game against Sweden where England came out 3-2 winners in what I still think is the best England game in terms of excitement for years. Rooney returned for the last group game against Ukraine and to his credit scored a good header. Finally a tournament goal for Wayne Rooney again. Could this be the Launchpad for him to go on and justify the belief that some still had in him in an England shirt? The answers no, England were toothless as a side against Italy and were beaten again on Penalties.
World Cup 2014 and Euro 2016
I'm sure anyone reading this will agree neither of these tournaments were England's finest hours, I'm not going to blame Wayne Rooney for either campaign. The only thing I will say against him for them is that I don't really know why he was there in France in 2016. We weren't playing him as a striker and we had better midfield options, he was poor across all the games and despite a penalty against Iceland didn't do anything of any real merit. The world cup two years earlier was similar, his goal against Uruguay was a decent finish from memory but again in a defeat. The fact he was given the captaincy after that world cup was strange, it was time then for him to move on in my opinion. Let the younger talent come through. Instead we had to sleepwalk through another very poor campaign where Rooney's presence in my opinion was a hindrance to those players not a help.
The Numbers
So let's actually look at the goals of our record holder, where and who have they come from. Firstly there are 7 from international tournaments. 2 against Switzerland and 2 against Croatia at Euro 2004. His best tally at a single tournament, 1 against Ukraine at Euro 2012, 1 against Uruguay at the World Cup in 2014 in Brazil and 1 against Iceland at Euro 2016. Now with all due respect to all those sides I would hardly call it worth of legend status which is what this blog is about. So 7 of his 53 goals have come in tournament football which in my opinion isn't good enough. That leaves 44 goals in Qualifiers which often England are expected to win comfortably and Friendlies which England seem to take very seriously while the Germanys, Frances, Brazils and the like treat as well friendlies. Don't get me wrong he's scored against France and Brazil in his time and some other decent sides like Denmark and Croatia but is this really what we've come to call a legend? A legend should be something that is almost unattainable. The team of 1966 are legends, there are a few from prior to that and past it of course there are but Wayne Rooney's name for me isn't among them. He did a decent job for England I won't deny him that and for a lot of people my age he is probably the most consistent face we've seen for England but is that enough to make him a legend? I don't think so. I hope I've at the very least been able to offer a different view point to the Gary Lineker lead love in that is doing the rounds at the moment.
Thanks for reading
Tom
No comments:
Post a Comment