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Looney Rooney to call the tunes

Yaya Toure should be off to Leicester to help shore up their defence. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Roar Guru
14th August, 2014
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Manchester United football club have some new shiny things to show off this EPL season. They have a new manager in the former Dutch national team coach Louis van Gaal, a new major front-of-shirt sponsor in the Chevrolet Motor Company and they have named Wayne Rooney as their new EPL team captain.

Louis van Gaal’s close friendship with fellow Dutchman and Dutch national team captain Robin van Persie suggested the United boss might give it to Robin, but Wayne won him over in the end.

The England international striker, 28, replaces Nemanja Vidic as club captain after Vidic left the club for Inter Milan. Darren Fletcher has been named as Rooney’s vice-captain.

Prior to Vidic, Gary Neville wore the Red Devils’ captain’s armband, which has been adorned by such notable United old boys as Sir Bobby Charlton, Bryan Robson, Eric Cantona and Roy Keane.

Rooney will skipper United in the English Premier League Old Trafford season opener against Swansea on Saturday.

Wayne Rooney has been at Manchester United for ten years now, having signed from Everton in 2004 as an 18 year old in a £27 million deal.

Having so soon abandoned the club that had made him the player he was and given him every opportunity to succeed as a young striker, Rooney quickly made enemies among his old Everton supporters.

And that was a lot of money for someone so young, but Rooney had potential written all over him and the United manager at the time, Sir Alex Ferguson, recognised it and was prepared to take the risk in signing him.

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A few days later, on his United debut, he scored a hat-trick in a 6-2 victory over Fenerbahce in the European Champions League.

“It is a huge honour and a role I will perform with great pride,” said Rooney. “I am very grateful to the manager for the faith he has shown in me as captain.”

Earlier this year Rooney signed a four-year contract extension with Manchester United worth around £300,000 a week (about $500,000 AUD a week) which will keep him at the Old Trafford club until the end of the 2018-19 season

“For me it’s always very important the choice of captain,” said Van Gaal.

“Wayne has shown a great attitude towards everything he does. I have been very impressed by his professionalism and his attitude to training and to my philosophy.

“He is a great inspiration to the younger members of the team and I believe he will put his heart and soul into his captaincy role.”

I think Van Gaal and the United board room may have other reasons for choosing Rooney as captain.

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Firstly, they want him to stay at United and restore some team harmony. Wayne has made no secret in recent years of his desire to leave Manchester. That disloyalty has led to indifferent form from the England striker and mixed results from the team.

Secondly, Van Gaal wants to get more out of Rooney for the money invested in him. If he had gone for Van Persie as captain, it would have disillusioned and de-motivated Rooney even further. He may have become increasingly attracted to the easy good life that such money and fame can bring and less interested in scoring goals and his football career.

And finally, Van Gaal is gambling the captaincy on bringing Rooney greater discipline and maturity both on and off the field. He is looking for leadership from Rooney for himself and the younger players in the team and being able to set examples that will make him a better, more disciplined player, to restore his pride in the club and make him hungrier for success.

Will Van Gaal’s Rooney appointment provide United fans and the greater football world with another manager’s master stroke, like substituting Tim Krul for Jasper Calissens in the World Cup quarter final penalty shoot out with Costa Rica.

But let’s not forget Wayne has also had some moments of madness in his career with United and England, that have landed him the title of ‘Looney Rooney’ and that he lives in ‘Wayne’s World’.

In international matches, Rooney has often been involved in a number of unsavoury incidents, like stomping on Portugal player Carvahlo’s groin. The incident was compounded by the histrionics of Cristiano Ronaldo, who was then Rooney’s teammate at Manchester United.

Ronaldo did a great job of getting Rooney riled up. He may or may not have influenced the referee, but Rooney clearly deserved the red card. Rooney, for his part, couldn’t control his emotions in a big match and earned a long layoff for the foul and arguing and swearing with the referee and Ronaldo as he trudged off.

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The then England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson confessed he often feared Rooney might end up getting sent off and had taken him off for his own good.

This only served to make Rooney angrier. When England played Sweden in the group stages of the 2006 World Cup Rooney was subbed off in the second half. He didn’t like it and to show his displeasure Rooney took off his shoes and slammed them against the ground in front of Eriksson. That earned him a rebuke from the coach and teammate Gary Neville.

When England lost 1-0 to Northern Ireland in a qualifier for World Cup 2006, Rooney became frustrated after suffering several fouls at the hands of Northern Ireland players. He lost his cool, got booked, meaning he missed England’s next match and then started arguing with his own captain David Beckham, who was trying to calm down the striker. He also brushed off Rio Ferdinand’s attempt to calm him down and continued his tantrums into the locker room, smashing everything in his path.

In a Champions League match against Villarreal in September 2008, Rooney earned a booking for a foul on Quique Alvarez. To show his appreciation for referee Kim Milton Neilson, Rooney applauded sarcastically and earned himself a second yellow and a pointless red card.

Then against Spain, when Eriksson subbed Rooney out, Rooney swore at the manager and the rest of the England bench, tore off the black armband that England’s players were wearing to honour the recently deceased Emlyn Hughes and Keith Weller and stormed into the dressing room refusing to acknowledge his replacement, Alan Smith.

Eriksson said afterwards “I did not like what I saw and it is bad for England. Even if you do not agree to being substituted, you have to accept it if you are a professional. I had to calm the team down at halftime, telling them to be aggressive without being stupid. Rooney will behave himself in future.”

England played Algeria to a dour 0-0 draw in the group stages of the 2010 World Cup. After the match, English fans booed their team off the pitch. Rooney, of course, decided that retaliation in kind was apropos.

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“Nice to see your home fans boo you. That’s loyal supporters,” he said to a nearby camera. The England fans didn’t take too well to that and Rooney only created more enemies for himself.

In 2009, Rooney got himself into serious trouble during Manchester United’s away ECL match against Besiktas. He was replaced by Michael Owen in the second half, and once again, he was dissatisfied. Rooney slammed his boots down, but this time started arguing with the home team’s fans and swearing and cursing at them as he stormed off the field and down the tunnel.

After the game, as the players and Manchester United fans were leaving, the incensed Turkish fans attacked and started brawling with the English contingent. A number of supporters and United officials were injured.

Wayne Rooney was really excited about scoring a hat trick against West Ham United in the spring of 2011, so he decided to glare, swear and curse into the lens of a live TV camera. The English FA didn’t like that so much, so they banned him from Manchester United’s FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City, which United lost.

Rooney won’t be in the starting line up for the next European Championships either, because he got himself sent off during England’s Euro 2012 qualifier against Montenegro in the last European Championships. The red card earning him a three-match ban, so he will miss all three of England’s group matches at next summer’s tournament.

All because he can’t hold his temper.

EPL managers like Ian Holloway and Steve Bruce have also given their opinions about Rooney and his agent and their ‘bullying’ treatment of Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson in his disgruntled transfer requests and team disloyalty during Ferguson’s last year at the club.

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Sir Alex was forced to stand down Rooney and announce to the press that Rooney was leaving Manchester United. In the end, Rooney refused to leave.

Rooney has also had controversies and been sued in private life for not honouring endorsements with sponsors, making false claims against people like David Moyes in his autobiography and for having extra marital affairs and wining and dining prostitutes.

I don’t believe Wayne Rooney is the right person or has the right temperament to captain Manchester United.

I know a lot of United fans are looking forward to greater success this season with Rooney as captain, but I don’t think that Rooney will provide the on-field and off-field leadership that Van Gaal is looking for if United is to lift the EPL Premiership in 2014-2015.

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