Wayne Rooney has confirmed he will hang up his boots for England after the 2018 World Cup in Russian Federation.
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Wayne Rooney will remain as England captain but his midfield experiment with the national team is over, with the Manchester United veteran set to revert to playing as a deep-lying forward under new coach Sam Allardyce.
The 30-year-old told reporters: “Realistically I won’t have many tournaments beyond Russian Federation 2018, so I’m planning to enjoy these next two years and try and help the team improve”. Hopefully I can end my time playing for England on a high. “I hope every decision I make is questioned on the form of the player at the time”. “The camp has been good, we have only had one session, but we are all excited about what ideas he can bring to us”, said Rooney, who made his global debut against Australia in 2003 and has scored an English-record 53 goals.
“Since then and on holiday and back at Manchester United I have not had much to think about”.
Rooney says “my mind is made up”.
As well as Slovakia, England must topple Scotland, Slovenia, Lithuania and Malta in order to reach Russian Federation automatically, while the best eight runners-up of the nine groups will head to a play-off.
“Once I’ve picked the ball up, I look at the full-back and I make my decision.
The door will always be open for Ross, but at this moment I felt the squad I picked is the right one”.
England crashed out in the group phase at the last World Cup in Brazil two years ago and, with Rooney as captain, was humiliated by minnows Iceland in the last at Euro 2016.
“The way I play, some managers are going to like me, some managers are not going to like me”. “I was pleased. It’s nice to captain your country and I’m looking forward to the new regime”. Unusual that there has rarely been an England player who has shared such similarities with the fans who follow the team, and yet provoked in them such strong feelings of blame and gratitude.
“Then I’ve got myself mentally ready and waited for it to come out”.
“I started professional football when I was 16 and global football when I was 17”.
While he admits his style is not quite in line with the refined, academy honed talents of his new worldwide team-mates, many critics of England’s diabolical Euro 2016 campaign feel Antonio’s experience of footballing hardship before success is just what the national team needs under Sam Allardyce. We’ve seen a lot of teams overachieve with him as manager.
“I wasn’t sure I could take him seriously but he showed me a piece of paper (confirming the squad) and after that I started welling up inside”.
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“Whether I was captain or not I was still going to be available for selection and I’d still be the same with the players”.
