Euro 2004 was a memorable one for Wayne Rooney. Photo: The Telegraph/Russell Cheyne
The failure of England's golden generation is now practically part of the national curriculum, but the strength of this team is worth repeating. In three of the four games at Euro 2004, the England team looked like this: David James; Gary Neville, John Terry, Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole; David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Paul Scholes; Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney.
It would have been a passable tipsy response for the best-ever All England Premier League XI, but it took the arrival of Rooney to lift the group. Beckham was the expected star for England in Portugal after an impressive first season with Real Madrid. By the end of the tournament there could be no doubt who England's main player was. It sounds like an odd claim given that he and his side were eliminated in the quarter-finals, but Rooney's performance in 2004 was arguably England's best individual performance of the summer tournament.
He could hardly be called unknown. quantity. It's hard to go unnoticed when your debut features a screamer, a new Premier League record for the youngest goalscorer in history and Clive Tildesley imploring the world to «remember that name». Yet Rooney went to Euro 2004 with no international proof and with doubts about his temperament and consistency.
However, he was one of four players chosen to be featured on commemorative Coke cans sold in Portugal. His then-girlfriend Coleen, who was still at school when he made his England debut, supported him. “She won’t let me think I’m something I’m not,” Rooney said. “She won’t let me get arrogant.”
That debut came in a 3-1 defeat to Australia at Upton Park, in which Sven-Göran Eriksson made 11 changes at half-time. On his call-up, Rooney wrote in his first autobiography: «I was delighted, of course, and put on a good make-up and rushed home after training to tell my parents. And then I did the usual thing – went out into the street and chatted to my mates.»
Rooney was gradually introduced to Everton by David Moyes, but he started his third game for his country, a Euro qualifier against Turkey at the Stadium of Light. «I found Rooney's Liverpool accent difficult to understand, at least at first,» Eriksson wrote in his autobiography. «The day before the game I told Rooney he was starting against Turkey. 'OK,' he said, as if he had expected it.
“He was exactly the striker we needed. Andy Cole never did that for the national team in my time. Heskey rose and fell. Jermain Defoe wasn't ready. Michael Owen was our only truly first-class striker.”
18-year-old Wayne Rooney at EURO 2004. Magical ✨🏴 Football Football Football# EURO2024 pic.twitter.com/rzEA7NlGz6
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Ericsson continued to use it carefully. Rooney appeared as a substitute or was substituted in his first 23 England appearances. But he quickly acclimatized not only on the field, but also as a member of the group. Journalists enjoyed watching him train, and on the field he was serious beyond his years.
“From the moment Wayne joined the England team he was incredible,” says England team member Jamie Carragher. Team 2004. “People said he looked more like a man than a teenager. To be honest, he looked more like Superman in 2004. By the time we got to Portugal, you could see the fear in the opposition defenders.
“He played with swagger and brought such a footballing arrogance to the team. Not in a bad way. It was Scouse cockiness where he knew how good he was and wasn't afraid to show it. Everyone in the squad immediately liked him.”
In Portugal, Rooney spent ample downtime at the hotel watching his favorite films, Crazy and Oliver!, singing along to the latter while getting a massage. There are many similar stories: a teenager with unusual influence on the field behaves off it like an inexperienced youth, doing business in his room while talking to his teammates.
angel'
By the time of England's first group game, Eriksson had given no warning. Rooney, 18, started against the reigning European champions. In retrospect, the French team was past its peak, but its best years still included Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and Claude Makelele.
Rooney was unperturbed. “I remember before the game I was busy stretching and going about my daily routine,” Frank Lampard wrote in his autobiography. “Nobody was dressed. I looked at Wayne: he was already in full gear. He couldn't wait to put on the T-shirt. He kicked the ball, hit it against the walls and laughed — no nerves, no fear.”
A soccer player's strength is usually determined by how he handles the ball. This is usually too subtle to notice since most enemies are equally strong. Rooney's power was much more palpable, blindingly obvious, but coupled with such grace came the cognitive dissonance of watching him.
«World-class defenders like Lilian Thuram bounced off of him,» says Carragher. “Not only his abilities, but also his strength of body at such a young age distinguished him from others.”
Wayne Rooney was the best player on the pitch despite the defeat to France. Photo: Getty Images/Phil Cole
“Appearances can be deceiving, and in Wayne’s case they certainly are,” Lampard wrote. “His physique makes him look a little hulkish, but when he handles a football he feels like an angel. At 18 you wonder if a player can make all these qualities work at the same time, but it comes naturally to him. His awareness then was as good as that of any experienced professional, and he is not afraid of anything.”
The French tried to irritate Rooney, but he kept his cool, making a «Marseille turn» on the ball when he collided with Zidane. He stalked the French defenders and goalkeeper with inspired aggression and then won a penalty after bursting through the defense and being brought down by Mikael Silvestre. Beckham missed it and the chance to extend England's 1-0 lead. Zidane then scored twice in the final minutes, dampening England's spirits, which had been lifted by Rooney.
«He was greeted with spontaneous applause»
England then faced Switzerland and needed a win. Eriksson abandoned the diamond formation after players, including Rooney, said they preferred a flat four in midfield. “Before the match, the Swiss goalkeeper said that I was just a young guy and that nothing could get past him — and that encouraged me,” Rooney later wrote. Indeed.
In the 18th minute he was booked for scoring on goalkeeper Jörg Stihl. Five minutes later, Rooney headed past him and celebrated with a cartwheel. Gary Neville spoke a quiet word, presumably telling him to remain calm. In the second half, Rooney beat Steele at the near post, the ball bounced off the post and the goalkeeper's back. Gerrard added a third goal and England remained away.
After the game, Rooney walked into the locker room to be greeted by spontaneous applause from his teammates. At home there was talk of Rooney mania. Paul Gascoigne, the man whose nickname was adapted for «Wazz», spoke surprisingly intelligently. “I never asked for help and never had access to consultants,” he said. “I would encourage Wayne to not be shy about asking for help.”
Wayne Rooney inspired England to victory over Switzerland. Photo: Getty Images/Paul Barker «One of Our Own»
Unfazed by the negative impact of Switzerland's mind games, Croatia's reserve goalkeeper Joey Didulica came up with a plan for Rooney. He and his team will provoke it to the point of explosion. “He can't handle it. The manager advised us to take advantage of this weakness,” Didulice said. “You can see Rooney is excited. He's having a good tournament and this is his first major tournament, but he still has a lot to prove.»
He did it. Rooney shone in the match against Croatia after England went behind for five minutes. He equalized for Paul Scholes with a deft header and then gave England the lead with his signature ferocious long-range strike. There was a period when a third had to be considered, Rooney coming on after a one-two with Owen when a weaker striker would have panicked. With him, a goal seemed inevitable.
In England there was a feeling that a new world star had become one of our own, a feeling that had not been seen since Gascoigne in 1990. Fans and press went into orbit. Rooney, wrote Gary Lineker in The Telegraph, «played his opponents almost alone, filling all the space between the strikers and midfield, and scoring most of the goals.» Comparisons went beyond Gascoigne, Pele was a name many aspired to, and parallels were drawn with his influence on the 1958 World Cup. Rooney looked unstoppable and anything seemed possible.
We all had a drink, but it didn't seem obscene to consider him the best player in the world. After the game, he left the field wearing the jersey adopted by Croatian Dario Simic, wearing the tempting number 13.
«The unthinkable happened»
“Una locomotiva de futebol” read one Portuguese newspaper headline the day before England's quarter-final against the hosts. All eyes were on Rooney, but Owen opened the scoring. England were ahead and on top. Then, after a tackle on Jorde Andrade in which Rooney lost his boot, the dreaded fifth metatarsal made its presence known.
Rooney tried to continue playing, but soon after fell to the turf, unable to put his weight on his leg. “I was immediately placed in an ambulance and taken to a local hospital,” Rooney wrote. “As I was wheeled through the corridors, still in my England uniform, we passed people watching the match… They put me in a cast, which didn't take long, and they put a needle in my butt. I couldn't understand it, this had never happened to me before — I guess it was the painkiller.»
Gary Neville consoles Wayne Rooney as he leaves injured. Photo: Action Images/Richard Heathcote
“The unthinkable has happened.” Ericsson wrote. “I put Darius Vassell in his place. Darius was a strong striker from Aston Villa who I liked… But Darius was not Wayne Rooney. No one could replace Wayne Rooney at Euro 2004.»
Portugal scored and then took the lead with 10 minutes left in extra time. Lampard equalised but penalties were again a disaster for England. Ricardo saved Vassell's effort and then slotted past James. But the focus afterwards was not on England's penalty blind spot. «There's no doubt that Wayne's injury was the defining moment of the game,» says Carragher. «If our best player had been available for the whole game, I have to say it would have made a huge difference and we might have won before it came to penalties.»
So another chance missed, another winning trophy. lost, but there were great hopes for the future. «I think we have a better chance of winning the World Cup in two years,» said Rooney's cousin John Morrie. “For our family, Wayne lived up to the hype of this year, achieving and exceeding all expectations. Wayne will be at the top of his game in 2006 and Owen will still be around.»
«People forget too quickly»
Right after the Euros, Rooney went to the Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados with Coleen, wearing inflatable boots to protect against injury. He was advised not to swim in it, but he did it anyway. Two months later he became a Manchester United player.
Another foot injury ruined his 2006 World Cup, according to Rooney, as he should never have gone to Germany in the first place. He was sent off in the quarter-final rematch with Portugal, which ended with the same result — a defeat on penalties. After that, all the highlights of Rooney's international career became individual.
The fate of his career since his retirement in 2021 has been surprisingly bleak, and some of that can be attributed to his stellar performance in 2004. Of course, he struggled to recapture that first flash of brilliance, partly because it came as a bit of a surprise.
“I think even now people forget too quickly how good Wayne was,” says Carragher. “When we talk about England's golden generation, I will always think of the 2004 tournament as the tournament that slipped under the radar. We finished the 2002 World Cup campaign and found a new dimension with Wayne. The performances in this tournament were good and Wayne was outstanding throughout.”
Wayne Rooney signed a contract with Manchester United after Euro 2004. Reuters/Simon Bellis
We now wonder whether this kind of narrative, a painful glimpse of brilliance extinguished by broken toes and missed penalties, belongs to another time. England still hasn't found its happy ending, but their modern woes seem less painful. Perhaps not in the case of the Euro 2020 final or Harry Kane's missed penalty in Qatar. But at least they come later in tournaments.
Gareth Southgate has been criticized for his lack of decisiveness, but one of his first acts as England manager was to end the international career of then captain Rooney. Perhaps this summer will finally put an end to their painful wait for glory for their country. No matter how England perform in Germany, no player will be able to recapture the excitement that Rooney experienced in the first tournament.
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