Rooney Ban Reduced

We learnt this week that Wayne Rooney’s three match Euro 2012 ban will be reduced to two games after a successful appeal to UEFA.

Rooney’s ban threatened to deny the tournament one of its most marketable players, and so UEFA stand accused of double standards after seemingly setting rules according to financial sway.  Perhaps this is a harsh criticism in the light of the fact that a one match ban is mandatory and anything more is down to UEFA’s discretion as to whether Rooney’s act was a genuine assault.

Rooney’s behaviour represented the kind of petulance that the game could do without if it’s to set an example to the rest of society, but to put the onus on footballers for society’s woes could seem futile.  Footballers are role models, whether they like it or not, but how accountable are footballers for wider social problems, and how much is their very own behaviour a reflection of how society is?  But that’s a broader question of personal accountability.

Whether Rooney should be selected for Euro 2012 is a divisive issue, but what Rooney does represent is England’s only truly world class player.  Could a combination of Ashley Young, Jack Wilshere, Daniel Sturridge and James Milner drive England to glory?  Probably not, therefore England’s best chances of success seem to be dependent on whether Rooney can emulate his club form at national level.

England have some excellent young modern style ‘number tens’ in the likes of Sturridge, Milner and Cleverly, but it would be fair to say that this list of players isn’t in the same class as the Iniesta’s, Xavi’s, Modric’s and Mata’s of this world.  Rooney can be.

On the other side of the coin, those who believe Rooney should be dropped might point out that Capello’s perseverance with the ‘old guard’ is holding England back – the Italian could do well to take a leaf out of former Spain manager Luis Aragones’ book and clear the decks:  In the 90s, the Spanish team was mainly constituted of Real Madrid players, and Raul was the golden boy of Spanish football.  Other players felt sidelined and Spain plodded along as perennial underachievers.  Many argue that Spain’s fortunes changed when Aragones took the impossible decision to drop Raul.  The national side could start afresh, and a new set of players untarnished by failure and led by the likes of Xavi, took up the baton.  Spain’s success is obviously down to far more than that one decision, but it seems valid to draw parallels.

It must also be noted that when England won the World Cup they thrived on losing Jimmy Greaves, who in the run up to the tournament, had scored 44 goals in 57 games.  Hurst replaced Greaves and the rest is history.

It must be remembered that Rooney is still only 26, and to put him in the same bracket as the likes of Terry and Lampard is unfair.  Rooney is one of the finest talents England has ever produced, and without credible back-up, to drop him could be to squander our chances.  It seems Capello was only calling UEFA’s bluff when he aired the possibility of not selecting Rooney, but it has certainly provoked debate.