Wayne Rooney: My Decade in the Premier League (24 page)

Once I’ve been selected, the testers follow me from the minute I leave the training pitch to make sure I don’t do anything dodgy with my sample. They watch me getting undressed, they watch me shower. They stand there looking at me until the second I finish peeing. Then they send my sample off with a whole load of paperwork to a test centre. The thing is, they never put my name on the form, just in case somebody in the centre doesn’t like me and decides to do something to my sample. Three weeks later I get a letter giving me The All Clear.

At the Allianz Arena, I’m the last one out of the drug testing room because it takes me an hour to go to the loo.

*****

The worst thing about having an injury as a footballer is that everyone wants to talk about it, especially me.

Give me some good news, doc.

Rob reckons my ankle is so swollen with fluid and blood that there’s no point having a scan tonight. When there’s all that gunk floating around, a scan couldn’t see any broken bones or ligament tears anyway. I’ll have to wait until we land in Manchester the next day.

The team have gone back to the hotel after the Bayern game, so I ride back with the doctor in a private car. We drive past 50 photographers and they’re all taking pictures of my crutches and the plastic boot. Another 50 photographers hang around for me at the airport in the morning. A car picks me up on the runway and whisks me through, but there’s still time for them to take more pictures of my foot. In the afternoon, a mob waits for me at the hospital when I arrive – everyone wants to know if I’ll be fit for the World Cup in South Africa in the summer. Afterwards, a film crew hangs around outside the gates of my house.

This is out of control.

The back page of
The Sun
that morning carries a photograph of me on the floor in the Allianz Arena. I’m holding my busted ankle. The headline reads: ‘Pray’.

I can understand some of the hysteria because it’s nearly the end of the season and the World Cup is only around the corner, but it still does my head in. I want to play as much as the fans want me to play. Thankfully, everyone gets their wish. By the time the doctor announces I’ve only burst some blood vessels and I should be fine in a couple of weeks,
The Sun
have written another headline.

‘Wayne’s Pain Is Only a Sprain So He’s on the Plane.’

*****

It’s crazy that doctors call the treatment for injuries like mine ‘rehab’. That’s where they usually send an addict for help, but then I’m a footy addict. After the Bayern Munich game I know I’ll have to rest my ankle for a while; I can’t train or help the lads prepare for the next match so, typically, I get grumpy, a bit like someone would when they have to give up smoking or coffee, I’d imagine.

I go to training a day or two later but can’t kick a ball. I have breakfast with the team in the canteen and when it’s time to start work, they go one way to the training pitches and I go the other to the physio’s room and the gym. They’re playing small-sided games. I’m having my ankle checked out. It’s boring.

A lot of the rehab work I have to go through is pretty sci-fi. The doctor puts my ankle into an icing machine, then he lasers the damaged area. This quickens the recovery process by draining away the blood and fluid. The blood vessels are always moving around, the doctor tells me. He
reckons that laser therapy speeds up this movement and helps the healing.

I’m a fidgety patient. I get snappy. I go quiet. I’m not fed up with the treatment or the physios and club doctors. I just want to get out there and play in the practice games like everyone else. I say sorry to Rob for my cob on.

‘Don’t worry pal, I’d rather you were moody about not playing than not bothered at all,’ he says.

The worst thing is, rehab messes around with my head. I feel left out at the club. I miss the banter and the crack in the dressing room. As I’m not fit enough to play, I don’t even get to spend the night in the team hotel with the rest of the lads before the next game against Chelsea. I have to stay at home and drive into the training ground the next morning for some more boring recovery work.

Still, it could be worse. Our midfielder, Owen Hargreaves, has had operations on both knees and hasn’t played for 18 months. He was a regular for England and United before his injuries. He’s missed out on so much, I don’t know how he’s got through it. A couple of days is bad enough for me; I reckon my head would go if I couldn’t play football for a year and a half.

What’s really strange, though, is that players become a spare part when they’re seriously injured like Owen has been. They go off and do their own rehab work: Owen went to America; Anderson did his cruciate ligaments a couple of months back and I haven’t seen much of him since. He’s been doing a lot of his rehab in Portugal. The United physios stay in touch with the players when they’re away, but they
become forgotten men around the club for a while. When they come back to train with the lads again, it’s like a little reunion.

I reckon The Manager leaves our recovery to the doctors because he has enough on his plate. He only needs to think about the players he can select for the team. The physios will tell him when someone like Owen or Anderson is ready to train properly again and from there he decides when to put them into the first team squad. He asks me how I’m feeling this week because there’s a chance I might play against Bayern in the return leg, but we both know I haven’t a hope of making Saturday’s game against Chelsea at our place, which is a choker because it’s one of our biggest fixtures of the season. It’s between us and them for the league now; we’re top and they’re second, but if we lose they’ll nick our spot and whoever wins will have a massive psychological advantage in the title race.

I wish I could play.

When the day comes I watch the game from a box in the stands. Before the start I get wound up and nervy. It’s like being a fan all over again, just like the Barça game a couple of years back, and it’s probably more nerve-wracking than actually playing. When the game starts it feels even worse than going to training and not being able to play, mainly because we lose 2–1, but also because it’s so frustrating. I can’t influence the game at all. I’m helpless. There’s nothing I can do to change the result and help my mates win the match. I try to keep a happy face on when I’m around the other lads at Old Trafford afterwards, but it’s hard. Chelsea
have got the edge over us in the league, and it’s a game we really needed to win.

Hopefully I won’t have to wait long for my next game.

I wish I could play.

*****

‘The news is good,’ says Rob a couple of days later. ‘You could be back for the home tie against Bayern Munich in a week.’

I’m made up. The Manager is pleased too, but he has a plan. He wants me to keep the protective boot on for a bit longer.

‘Especially when you leave the training ground, Wayne,’ he says. ‘I want to give Bayern’s scouts the impression that you’re crocked for the return game.’

Sound
. But the boot is a pain, and even though I can’t feel a thing when I walk, it’s still really clumsy and gets in the way of everything.

‘This isn’t stopping me from doing day-to-day stuff,’ I tell Coleen, taking it off after I walk through the front door awkwardly. I’m determined about that, too. The next afternoon I run out of milk for Kai at home. Coleen is away for the day, so a mate drives me and the baby round to the garage to pick up some supplies. The guy behind the counter looks dead shocked when he sees me walking towards the counter on crutches, carrying a shopping basket full of semi-skimmed and a box of nappies for Kai.

*****

I get to take my boot off behind closed doors at training, but I can’t yet run with the ball or put pressure on my ankle. It’s important to keep my fitness up so when my injury heals I’ll be match ready. Instead of playing, I go on a special treadmill the club has put into a small pool in the gym. The water supports me while I jog and cameras positioned in the bottom film the way my foot lands. It’s tough work.

I do cardio work. I go on the bike and race through a set of gruelling sessions with a physio: 5000 metres, 2000 metres, 1000 metres, 500 metres and 200 metres. I pedal as fast as I can and my heart feels like it’s going to burst at any second. Weirdly, it’s the shorter sprints that are more knackering. Cycling 200 metres only takes 10 seconds but everyone who does it feels sick afterwards. Me and Darren Fletcher finish a bike session and afterwards we have to lay down in the dressing room because we both feel like throwing up. When I look in the mirror I’m as white as a sheet.

When I get to train properly again it’s a relief, but some strange things go through my mind on the first day back with a ball. I’m full of mixed emotions. I wake up on the morning of my first session buzzing. I’m dead excited to be playing, but I’m also a little bit worried. I want to get through the session without any problems or twinges. I don’t want to get hurt again, but I won’t hold back in the sprints or tackles. I’ve got more chance of getting hurt if I hold back. I never let the possibility of an injury cross my mind when I’m on the pitch. I’ll even take an injury for a goal. If it means getting hurt in order to get three points, I’ll do it, and I’ll play through pain, no problem.

Injuries don’t affect the way I think about the game when I’m over the white line, but I can’t imagine what it must have been like for players like Eduardo, Aaron Ramsey (both of Arsenal) and our former striker Alan Smith. All of them had really bad leg breaks and it must have made them a little bit worried when they came back for the first time after a knock like that. The confidence must go a bit.

I remember Alan’s injury because it was horrible. It happened against Liverpool. He went to block a shot and landed awkwardly. The physio ran on and nobody really thought anything serious had happened because it looked like a minor incident. When I went over to the physio’s bag for a bottle of water, I nearly chucked up: Alan’s foot was facing in the opposite direction to his ankle. It was horrible.

The first thing I notice when I’m on the pitch if an injury like that happens is that the shock really changes the mood of the game. It shakes the players up. We were beaten by Liverpool that day, but immediately afterwards everyone was thinking about Alan. It could have been a career-threatening break. No one was talking about the game in the dressing room.

I get through the training sessions without a hitch – though my ankle still hurts – and by the time match day comes, I’m not even thinking about the pain, I’m thinking about getting us through to the Champions League semi-finals. I’m confident of scoring. I’m dead keen to play even though I’m not 100%: it’s mad, in training I can sprint but I can’t turn or stop suddenly. It’s like my brakes have gone.

When my name is announced in the team line-up against Bayern, the Old Trafford crowd go mental. The ground is buzzing. It really gives us a lift and we come flying out of the traps. We go three-up in 41 minutes and the whole stadium starts singing my name:

‘Rooney!’

‘Rooney!’

‘Roooo-neeeeee!’

It feels brilliant.

For a minute I reckon we could win by six or seven goals tonight, just like we did against Roma the other year. Then the whole thing comes crashing down as Bayern score twice. The pain gets too much – my ankle is throbbing. I hobble off the pitch again and watch from the sidelines as we go out on away goals. The Champions League is over for us.

I’m gutted. Everyone’s gutted. When we head back to the dressing room, nobody talks. The Manager doesn’t say anything. The whole team is in the same mindset:
We shouldn’t have lost that game. It should have been us going through
.

It gets worse a few weeks later when I sit at home and watch Bayern batter Lyon in the first semi-final.

It should have been us.

Then Inter get past Barcelona in the other.

It should have been us.

‘Football for me is like beer is for most people.’

Now I’ll have to wait another season for my European fix.

*****

One point.

One point.

Chelsea have too much for us in the end, but only just. Their victory at our place is enough to pinch the title. One point is enough to steal it. Fair play, neither of us were at our best this year; we both could have done better and we both slipped up a few times, but they had the edge on us. One of them things, I guess. It’s just that after all those goals and all that promise we only won the Carling Cup.

And that feels like a bit of a let-down.