WHEN GREATNESS BECKONED for Wayne Rooney, his ankle gave way. It isn’t quite as simple as that, but there was a time, almost a season, when Rooney was justifying those early expectations of brilliance.
He wasn’t the White Pele, as he was nicknamed, but he was making a magnificent attempt to compensate for Cristiano Ronaldo’s departure. For eight months, he was exceptional, until he got injured. And he has never touched such heights since.
But go back to 2010 and Rooney had scored 34 goals by the end of March. Ronaldo’s then personal best of 42 was within his sights. So, too, Denis Law’s Manchester United club record of 46.
It looked an extraordinary response to the sale of a superstar. Rooney, in wonderful form, was driving them towards a third European Cup final in as many years.
Then, in the dying minutes the Allianz Arena, he fell awkwardly just as Bayern Munich were scoring a last-minute quarter-final first-leg winner. Four days later, minus Rooney, United lost a title decider and the league lead to Chelsea. Four days after that, the Liverpudlian Lazarus limped around valiantly for 55 minutes in a bid to eliminate Bayern.
He wasn’t remotely fit but, had they kept 11 men on the pitch, his team may well have progressed. Instead, Rafael da Silva was sent off and United were sent crashing out. Rooney’s efforts from August to March ensured he was voted both PFA Player of the Year and Footballer of the Year.
He didn’t score after that, his campaign culminating in a dreadful World Cup. The notion of Rooney being a world-beater faded. As he brings up a decade at Old Trafford, the 2009-10 season stands out because Rooney peaked then. He had served his apprenticeship, sacrificed himself by becoming Ronaldo’s unselfish assistant and slipped seamlessly into the spotlight when the main man left. Since then, there have been two flirtations with other clubs and two lucrative new contracts, neither of them exactly enhancing Rooney’s popularity with the United fanbase.
He has the profile and the pay cheque of a galactico, but he has produced the performances of one all too rarely. Even in 2011-12, when he scored 35 times, his displays were mixed. Now, after a decade at Old Trafford, he is one of world football’s most decorated players, honoured with the captaincy of both club and country, but it would be controversial to call him United’s best player.
Indeed, he is in a four-way fight with Robin van Persie, Juan Mata and €75 million signing Angel di Maria for that unofficial title. He certainly wasn’t the outstanding individual in the side that finished seventh in the Premier League last year. It highlights the difference from 2009-10, the only year when he truly belonged in the planet’s top 10 players.
And while Rooney is almost certain to break Bobby Charlton’s United record of 249 goals and could end up second only to Ryan Giggs in the all-time appearance list, comparisons with past and present highlight his real status. Both among his peers and his predecessors, he belongs among the company of very good players, not the greats. While Lionel Messi and Ronaldo are the dominant figures of their generation, Rooney is not even among their closest competitors.
He came 15th in the voting for the Ballon d’Or in 2012. He wasn’t shortlisted – and as the shortlist contained 23 names, that is an inappropriate choice of verb – in 2013 and surely won’t be again this year. Di Maria, Neymar, James Rodriguez, Luis Suarez, Gareth Bale, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Arjen Robben, Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Toni Kroos, Thomas Muller and others merit a much higher standing. So, in recent years, did the Spanish masters such as Xavi and Andres Iniesta.
And, in United’s glorious history, 11 men have a cast-iron case for greatness: Duncan Edwards in the 1950s, followed by Charlton, Law and George Best in the 1960s; then came Bryan Robson during the fallow period of the 1980s plus Eric Cantona, Peter Schmeichel and Roy Keane from Sir Alex Ferguson’s first great team, Ronaldo from his last, and Giggs and Paul Scholes, who straddled eras.
That leaves Rooney in the next bracket down along with – to name but a few – players of the calibre of David Beckham, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Mark Hughes. There is no disgrace in that. But nor is there the sense that his potential has quite been realised or that predictions of pre-eminence have come true.
- Richard Jolly
