Back to where it all started

The Wayne Rooney who left Everton for Manchester United — the teenage prodigy with the soft voice and the cruiserweight’s build — has every reason to be proud, 13 years on, of the Wayne Rooney who agreed to make the return journey last week.

He has served as captain of United and England. He has scored more goals for both club and country than anyone else in history. He has appeared more for his nation than any other outfield player. He has won everything he might have aspired to win, with United at least: five Premier League titles, an FA Cup, a Europa League title, a Champions League crown and, in 2008, a World Club Cup.

And yet, Everton’s willingness to commit millions to restoring him to the fold has been characterised, at best, as a decision made with the heart rather than the head. At worst, it is seen as an expensive indulgence, a costly misstep, where Rooney’s presence is to Everton’s detriment and his absence to Manchester United’s considerable benefit. In part, of course, that is soccer, and sports generally: unforgiving, relentless, pathologically averse to sentimentality. The past does not provide credit for the future.

Rooney has faded, of course, …read more