Chilling, but Rooney can get better

14 April 2012

With captain Beckham in hospital and lieutenant Gerrard out of service, it felt bizarre to gaze upon the cadet being chaperoned by a Football Association minder through the forest of microphones in the Old Trafford tunnel and to think that, in deepest Azerbaijan on Wednesday, this teenager could be about to assume the role of being English football's main man.

For though the captain's armband was obviously going to be Michael Owen's, the inescapable sensation was that, after yet another performance of luminous quality, Wayne Rooney had staked an irresistible claim to being seen as the true conductor of England's World Cup challenge. At just 18. Frightening, really.

Where did he want to play, his interrogators wanted to know. As one-half of a strike partnership, or in this new withdrawn role behind the front pair which he had so successfully just inhabited? Rooney just shrugged diffidently. It didn't matter, he seemed to shrug; he could do either if required. After watching him torment these fire-free dragons all afternoon, who could argue?

Among his elders, though, there was still the conscious effort to play down his electric impact. Nicky Butt warned Rooney was "too young to start comparing to top, top players". Nonsense, of course, because even he could surely see the youngster had been operating with the sort of power, skill and confidence to make such comparisons as justifiable as they were inevitable.

For Rooney can't be protected from hype when he keeps living up to it. The most remarkable aspect of his international career so far may be that, in the nine World Cup or European Championship matches when he's been in the starting line-up - not including his truncated, injury-hit appearance against Portugal in the Euro 2004 quarter-final - he could be argued to have been England's premier performer in six, perhaps seven, of them.

Think of his startling full debut against Turkey at Sunderland's Stadium of Light or his man of the match display against Liechtenstein at Old Trafford or the three stellar shows against France, Switzerland and Croatia in the summer.

Now, against Wales, he, rather than his captain, was the real creative hub even if Beckham's astounding goal, broken rib and stupid booking ensured he was still the headline act.

There is much to enthuse about, old and new, in this fresh England from Saturday's evidence. The re-establishment of the Rio Ferdinand-Sol Campbell combo hailed by Owen as the best central defensive partnership in the world - the evidence that there's not too much wrong with Owen himself - and the continued rise of Ashley Cole and Frank Lampard as international forces.

Yet it is still the Rooney dimension which tempts us most into dreaming that England could make that leap from contenders to champions. People ponder how great he could become yet maybe he'll never be more dangerous than he is right now as a kid bereft of any self-doubt. He's the best single reason for watching England.

He's been scolded for trying to beat Welsh keeper Paul Jones from an impossibly narrow angle when a simple ball to the betterpositioned Owen or Defoe would have sufficed. Come on, we have to celebrate the sort of inner-belief which prompts this boy to feel he can achieve anything. "He'll try the impossible because he just has no fear," as Jones put it.

"Wales did leave quite a bit of space for me," Rooney noted almost apologetically. Never again; If Eriksson continues him in this role, no opponents can dare give him such leeway again because, turning unmolested to run at defences, he showed that he has the capacity to be even more devastating than when working on the shoulder of the last defender. One slaloming run near the end on Saturday was Maradona-like.

Yet even if man-marking of Rooney must now become a fact of life in the international game, his barreling power is still going to take some chasing and shackling. "There aren't many players, even those a lot older than him, who can pick up the positions he does," said an admiring Ferdinand. "Paul Scholes is the only one who comes to mind as having the knowledge to drop into the right areas."

Rooney says he can fill Scholes's boots but we need him to be Scholes-plus. With this boy, everything seems so instinctive. When to make the right run, the shot from 25 yards, the simple but creative pass.

On Saturday, the odd moment when he got a bit too greedy seemed almost heartening because it reminded you that he can get better still. Nothing ought to warm English hearts or chill Azeri bones more than this thought.

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David Jones (Footballer)

Chilling, but Rooney can get better

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