“It’ll be a proud moment and every time I’ve played with England I’m proud to do so and it’s a huge honour”, Rooney said. “To do it more times than an outfield player will be great but it’s about trying to win and that’s what I’ll be trying to do for the next two years”.
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The Manchester United striker will be aged 32 by the time the World Cup comes around.
Rooney was deployed in midfield by former coach Roy Hodgson as England recorded draws against Russian Federation and Slovakia in the group stage and beat Wales via a stoppage time goal. But in six major tournament appearances with England, he has never gone further than the quarter-finals. I started playing professional football when I was 16, and started playing internationals when I was 17.
“My mind is made up”.
“My mind is made up but it depends on Sam Allardyce, that’ll be my last tournament if selected”. Anything other than a Rooney performance rolling back about 12 years will cast further doubt on the player’s ability to last the course until Russian Federation.
England failed to qualify for Euro 2008 and he did not manage to find the net as they met with disappointment at the World Cups of 2006 and 2010. With England’s young talent and Rooney’s sagging form, that’s no guarantee.
Allardyce has indicated Rooney will be used as a forward during his reign, rather than in midfield where he played for Roy Hodgson at Euro 2016, but the skipper said he is happy to play wherever he is needed. “We haven’t really spoken about it – we will in the next couple of days”.
“It’s only a day we’ve been together, but you can see he’s a relaxed guy, and since we’ve been here the camp has been good”.
“I’m looking forward to this new regime”. We have bad memories from the last game (against Iceland), obviously. We have to put it behind us.
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“It was disappointing the way we went out of the tournament”. As qualifying for the finals gets underway this week both captain and coach will be under intense scrutiny against a side that has lost just five matches since January 2014 and beat Spain in qualifying for Euro 2016.
