Wayne Rooney: My Decade in the Premier League (15 page)

I’m ready
.

The Manager’s ready, too. He walks around the dressing room in his grey club suit, white club trackie top pulled over his jacket. He gets us going again with another one of his team talks.

‘Remember the history of the club,’ he says. ‘The game against Bayern. Think about the Busby Babes and what they gave to Manchester United. This is the 50th anniversary of the Munich Air Disaster, the accident that took their lives, so it’s vital for the club to win this game. But fate has decided we’re going to win this game. There’s no way that we can lose this football match.’

I look at him. He’s pushing 70 now, but I can’t imagine him retiring from football. He lives for moments like this. People have been talking about him quitting United so he can put his feet up, but I know it isn’t going to happen. Ronaldo and I are clicking in attack. Scholesy, Rio, Gary Neville and Giggsy are still going strong. I can tell he wants to work with us and mould another great team. Now we’ve won the league a couple of times, he’s looking fitter and stronger than ever.

I’ve sussed that he wants to win the Champions League more than anything, because not winning it – like last year when we lost that semi-final against Milan – gives him a cob on. And in the dressing room or on the pitch he won’t ever let us rest on our arses. Especially not tonight.

He tells us about the joys of winning the Champions League.

‘There’s no better feeling.’

He reminds us how lucky we are to be footballers.

‘You don’t know what hard work is,’ he says. ‘Your grandparents worked hard every day just to get by. You’ve got 90 minutes to work hard and to win one football match and you’re paid a lot of money to do it, so make sure you work. If you don’t, I’ll bring you off.’

He tells us about the poverty in Russia. He tells us that the grandparents of Russia’s footballers and their fans had to work in industrial factories for a living. Then he tells us how privileged we are and how we shouldn’t take anything for granted. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s emotional stuff. His team talks really get to me sometimes. It makes me want to run harder, play better.

I’m desperate to get out there now
.

How he handles this dressing room is important to the players, especially in big matches like this one. Some fans think he’s created an Us Versus Them mentality in here. It’s nothing like that at all. We know that the world isn’t against us, but we do understand that everyone raises their game when they play United. Defenders tackle harder, wingers leg it faster, away fans boo us louder.

I know it’s going to be so much harder in a Champions League final.

*****

It’s funny, once I’m on the pitch, lined up against Chelsea in the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, history and other people’s memories fly out of the window.

I want to make my own history
.

Cameras start flashing all around us. Moscow is split down the middle with the two sets of fans, red and blue. Then I see the trophy on a podium on the pitch. It looks unbelievable. My heart is banging. I hear the fanfare of the Champions League music and I know tonight might be my only chance of playing in a game like this.

Remember what The Manager said, Wayne: ‘No regrets.’

*****

It’s chucking it down with rain.

The pitch is wet, which means the ball is zipping about, and the game starts well: we have a few chances on goal before Ronnie scores in the 26th minute, but we really should be out of sight already. We’ve dominated but we haven’t taken our chances, so it doesn’t shock me when we get punished. Chelsea score with just about the last kick of the half.

Sometimes a match changes in a second. Up until half-time we’ve been in control, but now we’re walking to the dressing room on level terms. The mood has changed. Chances are, The Manager was planning on ordering us to play tight before the goal. Instead he tells us to go out and attack them again.

When we come out for the second half, I can feel the game slipping out of our control. It does my head in. We can’t keep hold of the ball, Chelsea are winning every tackle. They hit the bar. As the clock runs down, I know we need to
get to extra-time just to regroup and when we finally sit on the pitch after the final whistle, The Manager gets into us.

‘You have to create more chances,’ he says. ‘If you don’t, Chelsea will come on strong. You have to dig in.’

Extra-time is mentally and physically knackering for both teams. It’s tense. We’re tired and I’m limping.

My hip again
.

Only my mind is keeping me going. It’s the desire to win. I have to get my hands on that trophy. The thought of the prize at the end of the game is giving me the adrenaline, but it’s not enough; my legs and lungs feel done in and The Manager soon sees that I’m finished, I’m exhausted, the battering I took from Ryan Nelsen is still killing me. My hip is hanging off. I’ve played through pain a few times this season and got away with it, but extra-time tonight is proving too much.

The board goes up.

The Manager subs me. I’m gutted, but I can sense that the team needs a fresh player, someone to take the game to Chelsea in the closing stages, and Nani, with all his skills, quick legs and trickery, takes my place. Suddenly Drogba slaps Vida and gets a red card, but despite the one-man advantage we’ve now got, it’s not enough. After 90 minutes and extra-time, nothing separates us. It’s a penalty shootout.

After the defeat to Arsenal in 2005, I hate penalty shootouts, just as much as the fans. It’s a lottery. One mistake decides a final and makes a scapegoat out of whoever misses the deciding kick. And I’m in the worst possible situation: I’m a footy player who can’t take a pen. I can’t do my bit; I’m
a supporter again. Just a lad like the rest of the fans in the ground watching from the sidelines, or the people drinking in a bar at home. And like those supporters, I know that the Champions League final is resting on the nerves of Ronnie, Carlos, Owen Hargreaves, Nani and Michael Carrick.

I want to take one
.

When the shootout starts, we score two (Carlos, Carrick), they score two (Michael Ballack, Juliano Belletti); then the unbelievable happens. Ronaldo misses his kick.

He was our home banker!

Chelsea score two more; Hargreaves and Nani score for us. Everyone looks worried.

I watched England go out to Argentina on penalties in France 1998. I hated it. Bloody hell, the nerves now are just as bad as they were for me as a fan
.

John Terry jogs up to take their fifth kick; his pen can win the game. Scoring the deciding goal in a Champions League final seems destined for JT. He’s their captain, a hero to the Chelsea lot. I’ve watched him take penalties in England training sessions and I’ve never seen him miss once.

It’s not going to be our night. Again
.

He shapes to shoot right, sending Edwin to the ground, then he fires the ball the other way. It’s a certain goal if he makes a sweet connection, but at the last second he slips. His standing foot goes out from underneath him and JT spoons his shot wide.

I jump up and celebrate. JT’s an England teammate but right now, I don’t care, I’m dead chuffed at his mistake.
That’s the selfish streak that goes through every player when they’re competing. He’s sitting on the turf, head bowed, gutted. I’m cheering my head off.

It’s a deciding moment and now I know we’re going to win. The game is level on paper – 4–4; we’ve taken the same number of penalties – but psychologically, we’re one-up. It’s all coming down to bottle and our team has loads of it.

Anderson steps up: scores.

Salomon Kalou steps up: scores.

I wish I could be out there taking the next one for the team, but instead I’m here with The Manager, the coaches and the kit man. We’re all watching as a season’s work is decided on pens
.

Giggsy steps up.

God knows what’s going through his head. He’s got so much experience that most of the time he never seems freaked out by big occasions. Tonight he looks composed, like he’s playing in a training ground session and we’re practising with a reserve goalie.

Giggsy scores.

Now it’s Chelsea’s turn to feel gutted. The game swings the other way.

Nicolas Anelka makes the long, lonely walk from the centre circle to the penalty area. I watch him go, but something’s not right. It’s his body language. He doesn’t look confident. He’s bricking it. I can see the fear in him and I want it to break him. I want the fear to make him slip like JT. I want him to scuff his shot, to blaze the ball over the bar.

Our fans are whistling; their fans are applauding every slow, cautious step. He puts the ball down. His face says he’s beaten already. I know at this moment I’m going to get my hands on the Champions League trophy.

He takes his run up.

Miss
.

He plants his standing foot, head down.

Miss. Hoof it over
.

He strikes the ball sweetly, towards the left post, the ball curling just inside. It’s at a height that always seems perfect for goalkeepers and Edwin gets down to it quickly. He saves, the ball ricocheting off his fist.

We’ve done it!

Everything goes blurry, mad. I’m racing towards the goal with Rio, Nani, Anderson, the coaches.
Our fans are going nuts, I’m going nuts. Everyone’s lost it. Ronaldo is laying on the grass, shaking with tears; JT is laying on the grass shaking with tears. I can see Gary Nev running over to him in the chucking rain, in his suit, to console him. He’s a top lad, Gary.

I look at JT and decide to keep a lid on the celebrations in front of him. Sometimes football rolls for you, sometimes it doesn’t. We’re players for United, they’re players for Chelsea but we’re teammates for England and it’s tough to see my teammates hurting; I’m not going to get in their faces about it right now. I’m just happy it isn’t me sitting there.

I look up into the stadium to see Coleen and my family. There are thousands and thousands of fans smiling,
laughing, people waving back. They’re in there somewhere. Then I hear a Scouse accent next to me.

‘Here, Wazza, she’s up there,’ says the voice.

When I turn around there’s a lad I used to know from Crocky. He’s stood next to me in a photographer’s bib. Somehow he’s blagged his way in. Before I can ask him how he got here, I spot them. I can see my family smiling and waving in the crowd, bursting with pride. Then I remember that losing a final on a penalty shootout is probably the worst feeling in football. Winning one is probably the best.

*****

We don’t get to the celebration party until gone two in the morning. All the lads are there, having a few beers. Then The Manager gets up for another speech. He’s just watched us win the Premier League and the Champions League, but now he’s talking about next season, how we have to do it again. I look around at the lads and I can tell everyone’s thinking the same thing.

Doesn’t he ever switch off?

In the summer holidays, a few weeks after the end of the season, a fan on holiday asks me about the Premier League titles, the League Cup and Champions League winner’s medal; the battles with Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool: where did it all start? How come I managed to become a footy player? We have a chat, I crack on about how it all began on a tarmac football pitch behind my house. The Goals we called it, a tiny patch of land owned by a local youth club called The Gems.

I tell him that I was six when I went in there for the first time. I didn’t stop going until I was 12. Every night after school I was out on that pitch, sometimes on my own, banging a ball against the chain-link fence and controlling the rebounds; hitting volleys and free-kicks from the halfway
line, dribbling around imaginary defenders. It was the perfect size for one lad – basically a five-a-side pitch – and I could run from one end to the other pretty quickly with a footy at my feet.

If I wasn’t practising my shooting, I’d stand in one corner of the pitch and play a diagonal pass to the other end. I’d do it with my instep and the outstep of my boot. I’d do it left foot, right foot. I’d dribble with the ball, trying stepovers and tricks. I wouldn’t leave until Mum called me in for tea.

When The Gems closed for the evening, I’d bunk over the fence and play in The Goals for longer. The owners didn’t mind. Sometimes I was out there so late, the caretaker of the building would even leave the floodlights on, especially for me. The first time it happened – the lights shining down, making those long shadows you see in an evening game in Europe – I felt like a proper footballer from the telly.

When I wasn’t in my Everton shirt, playing footy, I used to go to the youth club as well. They had snooker tables and table tennis. I did dancing there. It was a great place because it gave the kids in the area somewhere safe to hang around. I loved it. Me and my mates could go there and have a laugh without getting into any trouble. It was open every night, so most evenings after school I’d be at The Gems, listening to music or playing snooker.

Most of the time, though, I was kicking a ball around the tarmac pitch. I’d imagine I was playing for Everton, I’d imagine I was Duncan Ferguson scoring goals in front of the Gwladys Street End at Goodison Park.