There is no doubt that Wayne Rooney’s actions last Friday were reckless and once again he showed signs of his uncontrollable bursts of madness. Never the less, any talk of not taking the Manchester United striker to next summer’s Euro 2012 needs to be stopped straight away.
Suggestions have been made that Rooney should not be included in Capello’s 23-man England squad after Uefa confirmed he will be banned for three matches, meaning he will miss every group game. Former Premier League striker and current ESPN pundit Stan Collymore is one of the people to give his backing to the idea of leaving ‘Wazza’ out of the squad entirely. Collymore suggests that Rooney’s inclusion will send out a negative message to the rest of the squad and give the other players a sense of the striker being worth more than them, claiming Rooney will be seen as ‘special.’
To be fair, Rooney is already the standout player is the current England side. His record of 28 goals in 73 appearances is impressive when you consider the four other strikers in the squad for the game against Montenegro have a measly five goals between them, with both Danny Welbeck and Bobby Zamora yet to score for their country. Including him in the squad will not idolise him within the squad or country any more than he already is; every England fan knows Rooney is the only player who can be considered world class in the current climate of the footballing world.
Injury tarnished his participation in his first major championships at Euro 2004 and at the 2006 World Cup the striker showed his wild side by being sent off in the quarter-final defeat to Portugal. As much as there is a chance of him acting like this again next summer, there is also an equal chance of Rooney producing a moment of magic that may clinch England their first tournament win since 1966 – it is a chance Capello must take.
The options available to the Italian are limited, with both regular England goal scorers Jermaine Defoe and Peter Crouch being left in the dark over their England future in recent times as the England head coach has opted to try out the youth of Welbeck and Andy Carroll. Chelsea striker Daniel Sturridge seems to be the only other possible youngster to force his way into the reckoning over the current season, but we can’t really expect these players to come up with the goods in their first major international tournament.
Tottenham manager and potential future England boss Harry Redknapp has come out in support of the fact that Rooney should be taken to the finals, saying the forward will be raring to go should we qualify for the knock-out stages of the tournament.
Both Steven Gerrard and Ashley Young are possible suitors for the deep forward role Rooney occupies but neither can be relied on to use the role as well as Rooney can against England’s tournament rivals such as Germany, Holland and Spain. If England jet-off to Poland in May without Wayne Rooney on the plane the only question in the minds of the England faithful come July 1 will be ‘what if?’
Aaron McBride