England manager Roy Hodgson named Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney as his stand-in captain for last night’s World Cup qualifying clash against San Marino and the uproar about the decision strikes me as making something of a mountain out of a molehill. Is the role of captain that important in the international arena these days?
May I just say to start things off, I’m not overly concerned about Rooney leading the team out against the minnows which are currently one of the worst teams in international football. The side were going to cruise to a resounding victory no matter what side Hodgson picked and the prospect of Rooney donning the armband for future fixtures doesn’t quite fill me with the same sense of dread that many apparently feel.
Rooney said on being handed the role ahead of the game: “This is something I’m really proud of. “It’s a big challenge for myself, and I’m excited. Hopefully we can cap the day off with a good victory.” So far, so patriotic, so normal you may think, but the main crux of the issue against the 26-year-old leading the troops out so to speak is his criticism about England’s fans in the aftermath of the abject goalless draw against Algeria at the 2010 World Cup.
Now with Frank Lampard withdrawing from the squad through a knee injury, regular skipper Steven Gerrard suspended and Ashley Cole getting himself into hot water for ‘bringing the game into disrepute’ by insulting a bunch of old men in stuffy suits, Rooney remains the next logical choice on the face of it.
While he may never have reached the peaks of his breakthrough tournament back at Euro 2004 and has subsequently struggled for rhythm and form for the national side, he remains our most creative and important player in an attacking sense and with 76 caps under his belt already, he’s already hugely experienced at representing his country and one of the more senior members of the squad in terms of responsibility.
Nevertheless, the ire has focused on his under-performance for the national team and being rewarded if you will with the captaincy has provoked something of an outraged response from some supporters. Rooney address these matters in his press conference earlier in the week with clear reference to the aforementioned incident: “It was partly to do with my own performance. I was partly looking to justify my own performance. The England fans have been great. They’re always there in their thousands and since then I’m a different person and a different player. I’ve matured.”
Clearly, despite earning himself just one yellow card while playing for Manchester United last season, Rooney has not matured, he never will. I simply don’t buy the argument that if you take away his aggressive tempestuous nature that you’re left with half the player. His red card against Montenegro which ruled him out of the first two games of Euro 2012 makes a mockery of that flawed line of thinking. He will never calm down completely because that’s just who he is; of course, it would be better if he was more disciplined, but a leopard hardly ever changes its spots, so we are left with an excellent but flawed player.
Secondly, the England fans are clearly not ‘brilliant’. We might like to think we’re special but we’re not. Selling out a 90,000 capacity stadium at Wembley for what looks to be a pretty straightforward game is in itself an admirable achievement and large swathes of our travelling support are exceptional, but so are other countries for that matter. We’re prone to booing at a moments notice and the amount of pressure we heap on them must in some way have contributed to our patchy performances for the past few decades.
Nevertheless, the role of the captain, on the international stage at least, is by and large a ceremonial and symbolic one and getting angry about Rooney being named as skipper with the prospect of retaining it later on in his career as the obvious successor after Gerrard retires from international football after the next World Cup has left everyone in a tizz over nothing.
Naming your best player as captain in cricket can often be more of a hindrance than a help, with Kevin Pieterson and Freddie Flintoff helping to back this up, with the various tactical sides of the game neither players strongest suit, but in football, leading by example can at times be genuinely successful.
One theory why Gerrard has never been quite able to replicate his club form for England is the fact that he wasn’t skipper. Being in charge appears to bring the best out in the Liverpool man in that respect, it clearly still means something to the players, although I would question the mentality of a player who seemingly can’t perform to the best of their abilities without another player barking orders at them every five minutes.
Rooney is likely to be England captain full-time in a couple of years and there are hardly many other options available to choose from. While he may be a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the game these days, he’s probably done enough to earn a crack at the largely arbitrary role.
Setting aside club affiliations for one minute, the fact that he plays for a rival club doesn’t bother me, neither does the point that I don’t particularly like him as a person, but if it manages to get the best out of our potentially most dangerous player, then I’m all for it, I just wish people would stop harping on that the position still means something. It was devalued long before Rooney stepped in, so perhaps the faux moral outrage should just be dialled down a notch in future.
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