One thing that annoyed me in the aftermath of England’s win in Bulgaria on Friday night was that still, despite scoring twice and looking dangerous throughout the game, there were still some fans of the national team unhappy with Wayne Rooney’s performance.
Listening to Darren Fletcher’s 606 show on BBC Five Live after the game, I could not believe the audacity and stupidity coming out of the mouths of these so-called England ‘fans’ and the criticism they were giving Rooney who scored two goals in the match.
One fan from Liverpool phoned in saying:
“Rooney can still do better than his performance tonight. Better players in the world would have scored four goals tonight. He’s still not impressing me with his work-rate and regardless of whether he plays for United or not – I just don’t think he’s good enough to lead the England line. Why doesn’t Fabio start Andy Carroll alongside Jermain Defoe?”
Another fan from London who was an Arsenal fan said the following:
“Even though he’s scored two tonight for England, Rooney is still miles behind Leo Messi and Xavi as being the world’s best player and is someone who has been hyped up big-time by the English media. How often has he done it when it’s really mattered for England and United. Where was he for England in the last 2 World Cups? Rooney needs to add alot more to his game until he can be compared to the two chaps I mentioned from Barcelona.”
Clearly the first thought that came to mind when both fans finished their ‘rant’ was that they were both bitter anti-United fans who clearly have never ‘liked’ Rooney from the second that he signed for United. It does not matter to short-minded silly individuals and critics of Rooney that he is England’s most gifted player since the ‘Charismatic Enigma’ that was Paul Gascoigne and arguably someone who is pivotal to any success England will have in the next decade or so.
Although of course it’s only a small percentage of fans who don’t like Rooney, it does raise a point. Why in the UK is there a pattern of criticising our biggest sport stars even when they are doing well? Why can’t everyone be happy for a player if he does well on the big-stage?
I will be honest here and say that I don’t think John Terry should have been given back the captain’s armband by Fabio Capello, but that does not mean that when he plays for England that I want to see him play badly – even if now it were to mean that someone like Phil Jones or Gary Cahill would get more starting opportunities.
You get the sense though that there are fans who not only want to see Rooney struggle for England but enjoy seeing it even if it’s at the expense of our national team, which they are so ‘madly’ in love with. Even if Rooney had scored 4-5 times on Friday, those fans would have no doubt pointed out that the quality of the opposition was poor and that it would be unlikely that he would be able to repeat that against a top team in a crunch game at a major tournament.
Well how many times then have Lionel Messi or Fernando Torres scored 4-5 times in a game against one of the world’s top teams? The answer to that is never, because it’s almost impossible to do it. Even if Rooney were to get a hat-trick or score the winning goal in a big game, you get the sense that these fans would have an ‘excuse’ and say that it was a lucky break.
Most fans will always prefer to see their club do well over their country, which is totally understandable, but sometimes fans get blinded by this fact and it carries over to the national team into hatred of players because they play for a rival team, which is quite childish to be honest.
It is ironic then that before the Bulgaria game aired the following advert played entitled ‘Supporting The Nation’ which in fact was quite a good avert showcasing football fans around the country building up to an England game, holding hands showing that they are fully behind the England team..
..Which is a shame as we know that there will always be bitter fans out there wanting to see players from teams they dislike do badly on International duty, which means that they are not really backing the team at all fully are they?
By Adam Dennehey @ADennehey87