AUTHOR: – Bricki
After a genuinely superb game Saturday, with everything you could ask for in a match bar a red card (Vidic tried his best to make that happen), we are left to reflect on a choice few words provided by Wayne Rooney on the completion of his Hat-Trick.
I’m not going to get into what he said, you’ve all heard it and the endless repeats and commentary on Sky/BBC/TalkSport will no doubt inform you. I don’t intend to defend Rooney as it was an ill advised moment, although why the cameraman decides to get so close to the players is slightly strange.
I want to have a look and reflect on Rooney and the actions/decisions of the last 12 months when his career has taken a bit of a different path.
This point last year Rooney had been on fire and was having the most effective season in front of goal of his professional career. Following Ronaldo’s departure to Real Madrid and Tevez to the other side of Manchester it was all about Rooney, the kind of situation the ‘big’ player loves. He was reveling in being the ‘Superstar’ on the pitch and was almost single handedly propelling United forward in the title race.
In the same period he was staying largely out of the public eye in terms of controversy and also had his first born son to occupy him. It seemed like Rooney was ‘growing up’ and starting to become the player many expected, with this
his form and performances were being pushed as a reason England would be contenders in South Africa at the World Cup.
Then the ankle injury in Munich occurred, he was rushed back for the second leg and it all went downhill from there.
- Out of the Champions League
- Overhauled in the Title Chase
- Poor World Cup and the ‘comment to the camera’ after Algeria
- Tabloid Scandal
We came into the new season hoping to see the Rooney of the previous campaign before his Munich nightmare but it seemed the scars (Physical and Mental) of the previous season and summer were still there. An interesting way to look at this is to try and see how Rooney himself will have approached the new season.
Up until the injury against Bayern Munich, Rooney was playing perhaps the most consistent, sharp and successful football of his career. Essentially he was ‘In the Zone’ – that special place that athletes talk about but what does it mean?
Various studies conducted in this area have come to the conclusion that when athletes are in the ‘zone’ everything is second nature. Players operate on instinct and know exactly what they are going to do before they even know themselves. As if something from the Matrix, the world slows down and then everything goes ‘ninja’. Like the ‘Force’ the player has complete control and influence on his ability and surroundings, this is the way Rooney will have felt up until that fateful night in Munich.
Imagine you are Rooney and all that is swept away from you in one tackle, how do you feel? You remove the thing that is getting you praise and what’s left? It’s a hell of a blow for a person to take who was being told that anything his club or nation could achieve rested largely on his/her shoulders.
How do you deal with that? Who’s to blame? Why You?
Now imagine you are a person who has not been denied a single thing from a young age and all the breaks have gone your way. For the average man on the street its a big blow but I’d argue you’d taken setbacks in your life before and you would balance it out in someway. For someone of Rooney’s development from 15/16 years of age, having everything you want exactly when you want it and being treated like a ‘God’ by many in the game and fans alike its a crippling realisation of being ‘human’. All the previous praise he has received in his career can essentially come back to haunt him, all the comments about being ‘world class’ will play on his mind and ego.
The ‘ego’ of Wayne Rooney is something we can talk all day about. Rooney’s ego will have developed as he’s gotten older and won more titles/awards – it is natural that any successful player would have an ego in some shape or form. The management and control of the ego however can be what defines the player and governs future successes in the game.
Rooney has always been an aggressive player, in essence the original sort of ‘street’ footballer, unyielding, uncompromising and ‘hardcore’. The sort of player you see on many Sunday league pitches, work ethic, team ethic and at the spine/heart of the team. The big difference between those players and Rooney though is his ability, this has allowed him to rise through the football world at a stunning pace and be a huge star and ‘personality’ by the age of 18.
At 18 this ‘lad’ has signed for one of the biggest clubs in the world, seen as the bright new hope and exposed to a world previously hidden over the horizon in terms of exposure, fame and fortune. How do you adjust to that change?
Just when you start to accept your new place in life, the ‘rewards’ and ‘praise’ for doing something you have just loved doing from childhood, it becomes a ‘job’ rather than a ‘game’. In all the money, media coverage and emotions, football is still just a game and played for pleasure whatever level it is at. Since that injury in Munich what joy has Rooney had in the game? Failure of United to win the League or European Cup? United missed Rooney. England’s failure at the World Cup? An ‘out of form’ Rooney. United failing to hit the heights in their play this season? Where’s the ‘real’ Rooney.
All that is not even taking into account the off field stories that occurred, but again a person who hasn’t heard the word ‘no’ in their adolescent development can start to believe that they can do anything they want. That is not to justify what he did but merely to show some of the thought process that may go on in his head, ‘I’m Wayne Rooney, I’ll do what i want.’
After the injuries and failure of the England team at the World Cup what was the public perception of Rooney? A failure, overated, ‘past it’ already, in the public eye Rooney is not revered as he once was and this can impact his own self worth. How do you find your true worth to someone? The transfer request saga and links to Manchester City is akin to a schoolgirl pitting two boys against each other in order to find out who likes her better and get as much as she can.
The result of the transfer request saga was a new improved contract and Man United expressing his absolute importance to the club and its future. In Rooney’s mind that’s his ego massaged again and the reinforcement of the fact he’s a ‘great’ player.
However this would only be a reinforcement of his belief and it would take performances on the pitch to fully cement this back into his mindset. The overhead kick against Manchester City and then other goals/performances started the process but the hat trick against West Ham was the confirmation the Rooney of ‘old’ was back.
In that one moment after he hit the penalty, everything in the past 12 months evaporated away and Rooney was back to the player before the injury. As he looked into the camera he may have seen all the negative press, comments and opinions of the previous year. He may have seen the Rooney that occurred during that time and what was his response to all that? The words that followed were a release of 12 months of knowing an injury had not allowed him to be his best and ramming the comments of those people back down their throats. He probably saw his own reflection and was casting off the Rooney of the previous year, telling him that this is his life again.
Rooney’s choice of celebration recently has been head up, arms outstretched, saying here i am, love me, adore me.
The fact that he has chosen to celebrate in this way reinforces the view that he has missed the adulation of the fans and its what makes him tick.
If you remove this mental state from Rooney’s play you will not see the same player. The Premier League sells itself on the passion of the game and its fans. Because Rooney doesn’t have a smile on his face after he has scored is not a negative as many make out, some of the greatest ‘celebrations’ have been mean, moody and downright ugly. One only has to look at American sport, the spike into the ground after a touchdown, the stare of the basketballer who has just dunked over his opponent. One of the best remembered NFL teams were the LA Raiders, as mean and angry as they come, but fans loved them.
Saturdays outburst wont have been directed at fans, it will have been directed at the people who called him ‘worthless’, said he was not as good as we thought, but most importantly it will have been aimed at himself.
Rooney was saying to himself, take the last 12 months and shove it, I’m a new man again… I am WAYNE ROONEY