Wayne Rooney at it again?

English soccer player Wayne Rooney may be considered one of the best players on Manchester United, but to many people throughout the world he is nothing but a pest. Current Manchester United coach Sir Alex Ferguson knows this firsthand. Rooney has been begging Ferguson for a spot in tomorrow night's Carling Cup tie against fellow English Premier League Cup Conventry. According to this article from Fox Soccer Channel, Ferguson would like to keep Rooney out of the match in order to give less experienced players a chance to play at senior level, but now Rooney is even pleading Ferguson to give him the role of captain. "He wants to play, he wants to be the captain, he wants to take the penalties, the corners, the free-kicks, the goal-kicks, the lot," Ferguson told Manchester United radio. The most shocking part is that Ferguson may actually accept Rooney's demands just to get the 21 year old player off his back. This may cause Ferguson to have to change much of teh lineup for this match. Ferguson would have been wise to keep big named players such as Ronney out of match like this. Even though the Carling Cup is a well known English Premier League Cup, it is still not as prestigous as the league's FA Cup. Putting Rooney or any other all star player in this match could risk injury and then keep these players out of more important matches in the future. But, of course, the "all might" Rooney had to get his way. Although this may seem like a very minor occurence, the Manchester United coaching staff and managers know how Rooney is based on the many incidents he has had while playing for both Manchester United and the English Premier League. The most recent incident occured in the 2006 World Cup which will be discussed later in this post.

Wayne Roooney first became known on the world soccer stage while playing for the English national team in Euro 2004 at only 17 years old. At that point in his career, it seemed like nothing can go wrong to this young English celebrity who just started playing for his dream club, Manchester United. However, the now 21 yeard old is not as well liked outside of England.



However, behind the scenes, Rooney was becoming a nuisance. After his outstanding performance at the Euro 2004, other Manchester United players were bothered by his "tough guy" attitude and he started to become a bully to the other players.

On September 7, 2005, Rooney got into some disciplinary problems while playing for the English national team in a 2006 World Cup qualifying match against Northern Ireland, which England lost 1-0. During this match, Ronney launched an on-field outburst against former England captain David Beckham, but since then the pair have played the incident down. His disciplinary problems followed him to his Manchester United career as well when he was dismissed in a scoreless draw against Villarea, a club that plays in Spain's La Liga. This match was extremely important for Manchester United as it was an away match in the European Champion's League competition. In this match, Rooney challenged a yellow card booking against him by referee Kim Milton Nielsen because he felt that it was unfair. In protest, Rooney sarcastically applauded the referee and was sent off for dissent. Rooney's sending off in both of these match possibly costed his team crucuial wins.

After these incidents, Rooney promised his teammates and coaching staffs that he will keep his temper under control and a second chance was given. Both his club and national team managers defended Rooney's action claiming that his youth as an excuse for his bad hehavior. Another excuse was that players from oppossing teams that were familiar with his disciplinary problems used this against him by teasing or provoking him, a common tactic in soccer usually used against good players to get them sent off. HOwever, the real test here is how a player like Rooney handles this pressure. Knowing this, many gave him a second chance, and in the 2005-2006 season, he was successfully able to keep his quick temper in check which was seen in his drop in cards received.However, this quickly changed that summer in the 2006 World Cup quarterfinal match against Portugal where Rooney was sent off in a crucial match for the English team after an incident at the 62nd. In the play, Rooney attempted to gain proper control of the ball in a challenge with Portuguese players Ricardo Carvalho and Petit, during which he appeared to stamp on Carvalho's groin. The incident occurred right in front of Argentinian referee Horacio Elizondo. As play was stopped, Rooney caught Portuguese player and fellow Manchester United teammate Cristiano Ronaldo speaking to the ref causing him to push Ronaldo aside and was shown the red card for what was thought to be a combination of the incidents involving Carvalho and Ronaldo. Being that the 2006 World Cup revolved around horrible officiating, it was natural that this call would become the center of controversy. On July 4th, the ref admitted that the red card was due to the stamp on Carvalho, and not what occured afterwards, telling a England-based newspaper: "It was violent play and therefore he got a red card. People can say what they want (about Ronaldo) but this had absolutely no influence. For me it was a clear red card, so I didn't react to the Portuguese players."

Many English sportscasters believed that this situation mirrored David Beckham's sending off in his World Cup debut in 1998 in which many English fans refused to trust Beckham for several months, but somehow Rooney's incident was the opposite.After England lost on penalties, the BBC sportscasters showed a clip of what they found interesting regardingRooney's dismissal. Before the match, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rooney's Manchester United teammate, approached him from behind and placed his head close to Rooney to whisper something into his ear. After this, Rooney appeared upset, and many fellow English players aknowledged this through his behavior in the locker room. Later Rooney claimed that Ronaldo advised him to be careful of what he does because he was going to tell the ref to send him off. This story may explain why Ronaldo was seen winking at the Portuguese bench but no one knows if this was the truth. Many simply called this action a gesture of victory since he had managed to get a dangerous English player sent off and therefore Portugal were more likely to win the match. Cristiano Ronaldo said in a post-match press conference that Rooney was a friend and he had not urged the referee to take out a red card, but just pointed out that Rooney had committed a foul. Instead of widespread complaints from England fans at Rooney like what happened in Beckham's case, many Manchester United fans and media disgustingly attacked Ronaldo and some even tried to convince Manchester United management to throw him out of the team. Some even harrassed his family in Portugal as well as allegedly sending death threats to his family members. This caused this Ronaldo to consider leaving the English club and join Real Madrid who had shown interest in the player, but Sir Alex Feruson sent his assistant manager to Portugal to convince him not to and he ended up signing a contract woth them for a ntoher five years. This controversy also costed Ronaldo FIFA's Best Young Player Award at the World Cup as a result of an email caimpaign conducted by some English fans against it and the award was given to Germany's Lukas Podolski. They cited Ronalso's behavior as a factor. On July 3rd, Rooney came out with a statement and claimed that his actions were accidental:

"I bear no ill feeling to Cristiano but am disappointed that he chose to get involved. I suppose I do, though, have to remember that on that particular occasion we were not team-mates...I want to say absolutely categorically that I did not intentionally put my foot down on Ricardo Carvalho. He slid in from behind me and unfortunately ended up in a positioning where my foot was inevitably going to end up as I kept my balance. That's all there was to it. When the referee produced the red card I was amazed - gobsmacked."

Here is a youtube video of Rooney's contact with Carvalho on the field when the incident occured:



Here is a youtube video of Rooney's comments regarding Ronaldo and the incident as well as his international career in general: