FOr for all the praise that modern footballers receive, most people will never understand the impact they have on young people. Of course you meet 21st century icons like Jack Grealish or James Maddison who broke through all the silly public scrutiny of their hair or fashion choices and Find ways to connect with young supporters, but the vast majority will never truly know what it means to them. fan.
I have been working in football journalism for almost ten years and have met some people who could be considered icons. Attending Jose Mourinho’s press conference as a student to gain work experience was surreal. As a childhood United fan, my first visit to the Old Trafford press room felt like a milestone, as did shaking Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s hand after covering United’s pre-season friendly in Norway.
I’ve never seen Wayne Rooney, though, and sometimes I wonder if it might be better to keep it that way. Never meet your hero and so on. However, if I did meet him, I would ask him about Manchester United’s 6-2 Fenerbahce match on September 28, 2004.
At that time, football had become the core of my existence and my emotions completely took over my life. For obvious reasons, this article could easily focus on Solskjaer’s stoppage-time goal against Bayern Munich in May 1999. But I was only five years old at the time, watching from a distance on a small TV in Devon on a family holiday.
Six years later, I traveled to Manchester United to beat Fenerbahce 6-2 and I soaked in every second. I’ve been to Old Trafford a few times before (and hundreds of times since), but this visit was like a beacon of memory.
There wasn’t much discussion about Rooney’s debut in the game. Yes, he’s just completed a mega-money move from Everton to Manchester United, and Sir Alex Ferguson (and all of us fans) believe the club have just welcomed their next superstar. But he shouldn’t have started. In the group stage match at home against Europe’s weaker sides, Ferguson is expected to rotate and possibly give Rooney five minutes of playing time. I didn’t care, being there with my dad – I just wanted to see Manchester United in action again. I think our previous visit was a horrible 0-0 draw with Newcastle.
So we pushed through the crowds on Sir Matt Busby Avenue and squeezed into our seats in the North Stand. My dad always did this, as we walked up the steps to the barf and the ground spread out before us, he said “Welcome to Old Trafford” in a stadium announcer’s voice. The sight is still beautiful to me, the red stands and the grassy stage perfectly arranged together. To me, Dream Theater has never been an ironic or tongue-in-cheek phrase. That’s it.
We found Ferguson inserting Rooney into the starting XI, with the 18-year-old prodigy starting in a dream frontline alongside Ryan Giggs and Ruud Ruud Ruud. Cristiano Ronaldo remained an unused substitute that night. Ridiculous times.
The floodgates opened seven minutes later when Ryan Giggs’ strike put United on the path to routine victory. Then, in the 17th minute, it was the first of three dream moments for Rooney and me. The debutant capped United’s trademark move with a wicked left-footed finish following Ruud van Nistelrooy’s sliding pass.
Rooney’s second goal followed, and was even better: a dropped shoulder, a feint with his right foot, then a jarring low shot into the corner. By then, United were 3-0 ahead on the half-hour mark and the 11-year-old was content.
However, it is building towards a climax. Fenerbahce pulled a goal back in the 47th minute – “to keep things interesting”, as my dad assured me – but there was no denying Rooney’s performance. This was his throne and we had 67,000 people witness the coronation.
Ten minutes into the second half, Rooney put the ball in a better position for a free kick. But remember, after many years in charge of David Beckham, United fans are spoiled for choice with these goals. With that history and the lure of a hat-trick, there may be a heavy weight on these teenagers’ shoulders.
However, the player defied that logic and fired a perfect free-kick into the top left corner before turning away and just landing in Football Utopia. Manchester United scored a hat-trick on their debut in front of a packed Old Trafford. Forget Roy at Rangers. This kind of thing shouldn’t happen in reality. I dare not write it in my junior high school English textbook.
That’s why the third goal is the most important one. I stayed in my seat while the whole crowd stood up in anticipation of this moment, jumping up and down in disbelief and nearly falling over. An older guy in the seat next to me turned to me with a huge smile and shook my hand – as if this whole experience was a victory for young people, a hope for United tomorrow. I hugged my dad.
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After the win (where Ruud van Nistelrooy and David Bellian scored after another consolation for Fenerbahce) Ferguson’s post-match reaction didn’t quite match my own joy.
“Don’t forget, he’s only 18, a little boy,” the Manchester United boss said. “As a coach, the most important thing for me is to let the boy develop naturally without too much public attention. I want him to be as ordinary as possible.”
I had – and always have – the utmost respect for Ferguson, and you can understand the extent to which the Scot would try to downplay the hype after a debut like this – but to be honest, such a cautious reaction simply wasn’t in my mind , I went home after the game. In fact, it doesn’t matter if Rooney fails at Manchester United after that. It was providence that he went on to become the club’s and England’s all-time top scorer (although Harry Kane surpassed him for the national team).
This moment is everything and thousands of people celebrate together in shared ecstasy. Of course, every goal you score results like this, but this time, the story worked its magic on me and I was mesmerized by its brilliance.
Maybe that was the moment, rather than the 1999 Champions League final, that crystallized my love for football and Manchester United.This one is different because it is mine. It felt important that I was there, sharing a testimony of history, and that I was old enough to accept the story. It’s also significant that an 18-year-old kid performed a magic trick like that, Rooney is only seven years older than me. Before him were Beckham, Ryan Giggs and Roy Keane, who always felt like adults from another generation. Now I can paint a picture of Rooney’s career, not as a role model per se, but as a phenomenon among the millennial generation.
Rooney, of course, has scored more high-profile goals for United: a thunderous volley against Newcastle, an overhead kick in the Manchester derby, a goal from the midfield line against West Ham.
But for him and me it all started with a routine trip to Old Trafford for the Champions League group stages on a warm September night. A journey begins.
