Sport category: Rooney Rooney s unfinished business with Portugal
Date: 01-07-2006 10:04
The last time England and Portugal met, Wayne Rooney started the evening as the focal point of English hopes out on the Estadio da Luz pitch but ended it as a forlorn observer in his hotel room.
Rooney learnt an early lesson in life’s unpredictability in Lisbon that night. One moment he was the teenage talisman of an England team leading the UEFA EURO 2004 hosts 1-0, the next he was nursing a fractured metatarsal and England the hangover of another penalty shoot-out defeat.
If the loss of Rooney 27 minutes into that quarter-final wrote another page in England’s 40-year history of ‘What ifs’, the estimated 80,000 English football supporters congregating in Gelsenkirchen this weekend should be at least safe in the knowledge that should their team fail again, it will have nothing to do with Rooney’s metatarsals.
Just as Portugal were witnesses to Rooney’s exit from one major tournament, so Luiz Felipe Scolari’s men could be present when he truly announces his arrival at another. The 20-year-old may be waiting for his first FIFA World Cup goal but there were signs last Sunday, in his first 90 minutes of these finals against Ecuador, that he is fast recovering his best form following his return to fitness from the second broken metatarsal of his career.
Being asked to play as a lone striker, Rooney seemed to get stronger as the game progressed. As if to underline his growing confidence, inside the final 20 minutes, he produced one of the few memorable moments of a largely disappointing match. Teasing an opponent close to the left touchline, he slipped the ball through his legs and burst past him and into the penalty box before laying the ball off to Frank Lampard, whose finish did not match the approach.
Franz Beckenbauer has since praised the Manchester United forward for “an excellent job” in the 1-0 win over Ecuador, while Rooney himself admitted: "I was quite pleased with my performance." Read entire article...
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The last time England and Portugal met, Wayne Rooney started the evening as the focal point of English hopes out on the Estadio da Luz pitch but ended it as a forlorn observer in his hotel room.