Wayne Rooney announced his retirement yesterday to become the permanent manager of Derby after an 18 year playing career. Lets look back at the career he had in the game.
Rooney burst onto the scene at 16 years old when he scored on his full Premier League debut for Everton against Arsenal with an excellent strike into the top corner back in 2002. That goal came days before he turned 17 and months later made his England senior debut against Australia in February 2003. Seven months later, he scored his first international goal for England against Macedonia in a 2-1 win becoming the youngest player to score for England. He showed at a young age that he had a lot of potential by scoring goals and in 2004, he was selected in England's squad for the Euro's where he lit up the tournament with 4 goals. That tournament in Portugal was where he made a name for himself and was named in the team of the tournament.
After showing promise at Everton and for England, Rooney earned himself a move to Man United for £25.6 million at 18 years old. After his move, he scored a hat trick on his debut for the club in a 6-2 win over Fenerbahce in the Champions League. That hat trick was the start of successful career at the club as he won every trophy on offer in 5 Premier League titles, 3 League Cups, the Champions League, the FA Cup and the Europa League. He's also United's record goal scorer with 253 goals and many of those goals were great ones such as the first time volley from outside the box against Newcastle in 2005, the overhead kick against Man City in 2011 and a long range lob against West Ham in 2014. He surely has to go down as a Man United legend because he's their all time record goal scorer and played a huge part for them in almost every season he was there. Especially in the seasons where they won the title.
For England, he will go down as one of their greatest strikers because he's their all time record goal scorer with 53 goals. But his only regret will probably be not showing up at major tournaments because we never saw the best of him after lighting up the stage at Euro 2004. He only found the net once in 3 World Cup finals and scored once in each of his next two appearances at European Championships in 2012 and 2016. To be fair, we didn't see England themselves deliver on the international stage in most of those tournaments despite having some top players in the sides that were selected including Rooney himself. Despite not seeing the best of him at major tournaments, he'll still go down as a good player for England because he's their all time leading goal scorer and was the captain of the national team. Not many players get to be captain and leading goal scorer for their country.
In terms of his career overall, Wayne Rooney will go down as one of the best English players to play the game because of the goals he scored for club and country , the player he was overall and the trophies he won. He's had an incredible career as a player and was considered as one of the best strikers in the Premier League and the world.
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