The 'Wayne Rooney' Euros, 20 years ago

Some fans might have seen this story before, but I've only just watched it now for the first time, on the Bbc.
And wow, what an impact he made at that time, as an 18 year old, as we/England went to Euro '04 (in Portugal). And I still remember it like it was yesterday of course lol.
Rooney-mania took over all over the country didn't it, especially in the schools. People were wearing masks of him, which I admit looked very weird. And even Wayne himself says he thought it was weird.

 

Great player

 

I remember seeing his first game for Everton on motd and the next morning at work telling colleagues, I have just seen one of the best players in England for the next ten years at least. But no one believed me.

 

He was electric. Shame the rest of his England career was massively underwhelming.

 

Remember going to watch England V Turkey in a qualifier at the stadium of light. Might have been his first competitive game but I'm not 100% on that part.
He was sensational, so strong and powerful. He was one hell of a player in his prime.

 

Had a good tournament, then held England back for the next 12 years

 

Absolute nonsense.
One of England's greatest ever players.
Everything wrong with our attitude to then suggest he held the team back. It's a idiotic viewpoint.

 

I think Rooney often gets overlooked as one of the greatest English talents. A combination of priming early and then when he slowed down he wanted to be a ball influential player. I think he had a dig with Sir Alex one time as they were playing one up top and he was dropping deep to get more involved if he didn’t see much of the ball as a sole striker.

In his prime, his raw pace strength and ability were fantastic and nearly impossible to defend against. Loved Rooney, quite funny the difference between his physique and Ronaldos though with Ronaldo being older.

 

He did. Totally overrated for England, couldn't be arsed attitude.

 

He didn't. And he obviously cared and gave his all. I'm not sure what evidence you have used to form this opinion but it's a terrible one.

 

In terms of his club career he's absolutely an all time English great. In terms of the national team he's not.

 

53 Goals in 120 appearances. Yes he is. You can break that down anyway you like but he is. England's 2nd all time top scorer and 120 appearances.
Being a Engalnd great is relative to how good we are, and England have been poor for the best part of 50 years.
If you look at Barnsley's great players and compare them to some other clubs then they are poor by comparison.
It a strange mentality that we like to turn on our more successful players and say they are poor and that's why we haven't succeeded.

 

1 goal against Argentina, 2 against Brazil and 1 against France. All in friendlies. The rest are mainly goals against poor teams in qualifiers.

You can't argue that he wasn't massively underwhelming when it came to tournaments after 2004. John Stones has scored twice as many World Cup goals as him.

 

As MR said, for Man Utd - great, can't fault the man.
For England - average. Scored 52, but only what is it, 1 or 2, in major tournaments. Sorry buddy, I'm not saying you're wrong it's just my opinion. Proper Marmite player. You loved watching him play, whereas I saw a bloke who looked like he would've rather been in Magaluf instead.

England has performed a lot better in tournaments since it stopped being The Wayne Rooney Show.

 

Yes he was massively underwhelming at future tournaments and so were England. He wasn't the sole reason for that, and as such he is a all time England great.
The reality is England have often been S#!t so it's not that hard to be a England great.

 

England have performed a lot better in tournaments since we got a coach in who made some sensible decisions. Ironically despite being the most successful coach since we won the world cup he still gets slated too.
It would be funny if it wasn't so stupid.

 

England became the Wayne Rooney show, he was always the focal point of the team, but flattered to deceive. He wasn't good enough to carry a team like a Maradona/CR7/Messi, and he took away massively from the team ethic.

A majorly disappointing 'great hope' of the English game.

Even in club football, while a very good player, I'd not put him in the top world class bracket. At any time in his career would he ever have been in the best world 11? Not sure he would.

 

It's a bit tongue in cheek, but the point remains that I think it's hard to argue that a striker with 1 goal in 11 appearances on the biggest stage is an "all time great"