Every big achievement in soccer is appreciated all around the world not only in the region such player belongs to and if we are talking about Rooney’s recent feat of scoring highest goals for Manchester United then we should assume Englishman would get equal appreciation in Europe as well, perhaps if we look at the way such players are being treated in their later age European sides are much better than their English counterparts and this is what is being felt by many Rooney fans who find their star player in miserable condition after his transfer talks to the Chinese club. The 38-year-old defender Rio Ferdinand is one such player who is surprised to see the treatment Rooney is getting despite being the highest goals scorer for ManU, maybe he is having some problem with his bosses else how is it possible that a legendary player of his class decides to move outside after surpassing Sir Bobby Charlton‘s Manchester United mark with his 250th goal for the club?
Since Ferdinand has played alongside Rooney for more than ten long years at Old Trafford, his assessment is more trustworthy than by anyone else and he says Rooney would have got much better treatment in Europe than in his homeland. He said, “I don’t know what it is. I try to put my finger on it all the time. He is putting up numbers that nobody has done. He is surpassing records — landmark records that nobody has been near for 40 years. But there’s always a ‘but.’ Why? I think he’s appreciated more on the continent than he is in this country and that’s a shame because a lot of foreign teams would love to have taken him many times.
“They’d see he wasn’t just an out-and-out striker, he wasn’t just a No. 10, he was a combination of both. How many in history have we seen really able to do that? The Brazilian Ronaldo didn’t do that, Marco van Basten didn’t do that, and they’re the two best No. 9s in my time watching football.”
Adding if there is anything left with Rooney who has crossed thirty years, Ferdinand says, “He’s 31, but he’s probably got the mileage of a 36-year-old with what he has done in his career and the velocity he plays at, the scrutiny and the pressure. The big thing has been to get through that barrier of 250. That’s a lot of pressure. People were always talking about it.”
Rio Ferdinand: Ververidis Vasilis / Shutterstock, Inc.