Wayne Rooney - 100 Caps But Is He All That

Wayne Rooney on Saturday completed the wonderful achievement of gaining his one hundredth cap for England and joined the illustrious list of players who had gone before Peter Shilton, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Bobby Moore, Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard, Bobby Charlton and Billy Wright making Rooney the ninth person in history to achieve this.

                       

 

At still only thirty years of age it is more than possible that Rooney could go on and be Englands most capped ever player and also has the top all time goalscorer record in his sights.  

There is no doubt that Rooney has been one of the better footballers of his generation and has played an important role for both his club and country but we have to ask has he fulfilled his potential as he achieved everything we hoped for when he first broke on to the scene in short is Wayne Rooney all that?

When Rooney made his England debut against Australia in 2003 at seventeen he was the youngest player to have represented England as a full international and when he played his first tournament Euro 2004 he was the youngest scorer in competition history with his two goals against Switzeland.  At this tournament Rooney took the world by storm and was the stand out player taking England to the quarter finals, where he was injured against Portugal and England were eliminated on penalties, but the young Rooney had scored four goals in four games and was named in the team of the tournament.  Injury blighted his 2006 World Cup, he never fully recovered from his injury and failed to score a goal in the tournament, Englands tournament ended in the quarter finals, again on penalties, Rooney was sent off in 62nd minute of the game, further tournament failures were to follow for Rooney with poor performances in the finals of 2010 and 2014 World Cups and no goals for Rooney.  He has produced in qualifying but following initially bursting on to the scene at his first tournament never again in the finals of a major competition.  One reason, perhaps the main reason why I would argue that despite his number of caps he never really reached the level we hoped for and in my opinion it is still a matter of what if.

Rooney has played well for England but again since that initial tournament has never been a superstar he has never reached the level of the greatest players in the game Messi and Ronaldo at times he has not been the best player in the England team with Gerrard or Lampard also very important players, this is nothing to be ashamed of millions of players have never reached these very top levels but when he was seventeen these were the levels we were predicting.  Good yes, great even, but not the greatest.

His attitude on the field at times has let him down to many yellow cards, red cards that have cost England their progression in world cups, to childish, to petulant throughout his career.  A weakness that other teams exploited and at times cost England big time.  A true great would not have let this happen, you cant imagine Messi getting sent off and costing Argentina a place in a world cup semi.

So well done Wayne Rooney and keep going, we certainly need you, but I cant help feeling we could have had so much more.  Wayne and the golden generation never quite made it.

@lfclumo