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Wayne Rooney leaves teen years behind
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-10-26 05:58
He burst on to the scene as a 16-year-old for Everton,
scoring a superb goal to end Arsenal's 30-match unbeaten run in October 2002,
and set two England records within a year as their youngest player, at 17, and
youngest scorer.
He was briefly the youngest scorer at a European championship during Euro
2004 in Portugal, where his four-goal tally was ended by a broken bone in the
quarter-final defeat by the hosts.
Last year's 27 million-pound (US$47.68 million) move to United, memorably
celebrated with a Champions League hat-trick on his debut against Fenerbahce,
has clearly enabled him to move up a level as a player.
Flourishing alongside the likes of Ryan Giggs, Cristiano Ronaldo and Ruud van
Nistelrooy, Rooney finished his first season at Old Trafford as United's top
scorer.
Ferguson now expects great things from Rooney, but Eriksson is hoping for
football's biggest prize of all.
Owen impersonator
As a 12-year-old boy on a Croxteth housing estate, Rooney watched Michael
Owen score a superb goal for England against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup.
When the second-round match ended, Rooney pretended to be England's teenaged
striker in a scratch game in the street with his friends.
Next year, Rooney will line up alongside Owen at the start of what many
believe is England's best chance of winning the World Cup since 1990, if not
1966.
(China Daily 10/26/2005 page15)
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