Manchester United legend and England's highest captain Wayne Rooney has today announced that he will retire from international football following the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, provided England manage to qualify. Wayne Rooney spoke to the press at a media briefing when he announced that he would be taking a bow after the 2018 World Cup. He is 30 years old and currently the record holder for most goals scored by an England player with 53 goals in a total of 115 games for the national team in a career that started back in 2004 at the European Championships in Portugal.
He said, "Come Russia I feel that will be the time to say goodbye to international football. My mind is made up." He went on to say, "It's still two years away. I started playing professional football when I was 16, and started playing internationals when I was 17. Fifteen years is a lot. I'd be 34 by the next tournament. I've had a fantastic international career so far. I've enjoyed every minute." He also said, "Russia will be my last opportunity to do anything with England so I'm going to try to enjoy these two years and hopefully I can end my time with England on a high."
Rooney also spoke about the fact that new manager Sam Allardyce has gone on record saying that he would play the captain in the midfield just like how he has been played by Jose Mourinho at Manchester United this season and the player said that he respects the decision. "Obviously it's the manager's decision. We haven't really spoken about it - we will in the next couple of days. I'm ready to play whether it's midfield, number 10 or striker."
Lastly, he also talked about the new manager and the squad that is their at his disposal. "If he gets the best out of our players, then he'll do well," said Rooney. The ability and talent is there. It's just a matter of us doing well in a tournament. We are a small margin away." He added, "He'll want to find out why we keep tripping up. The managers and players haven't found out why, but Sam will try to find out why it's happening. We've seen a lot of teams overachieve with him as manager. That's down to the way he's got them playing. Hopefully he can do the same with us."
[Quotes from BBC]
