Opinion | England record scorer Wayne Rooney limps off to Major League Soccer cellar dwellers DC United, but we haven’t heard the last of him

“I have a (Manchester United) contract until 2019 that I want to see out and wouldn’t be against extending it, but that’s up to the club,” said Wayne Rooney when this writer spoke to him two years ago. “After that who knows, but I won’t play for any other Premier League clubs.”

Rooney, 30, was captain of England and Manchester United, and could have had another four years in him, but a year later he was allowed to rejoin Everton.   

Rooney’s still only 32, still the most famous English player and the same age as his former United teammate Ashley Young, but one started in the triumph against Colombia in Moscow and one no longer figures for his national side.

Age comparisons can make Rooney’s situation look sad. He’s a year younger than Cristiano Ronaldo, the man he’d done the running for as United became the best team in England, Europe and the world, yet he’s a long way short of the Portuguese’s level.

Rooney signed a two-year contract at Everton, but stayed only a year. The hype of feel-good messages about coming home couldn’t disguise he was in decline, a decade after he was United’s best player, better even than Ronaldo in the eyes of his teammates.

“Evertonians welcomed Rooney back to the fold – the prodigal son had returned,” said lifelong Everton fan David Swaffield. “Whilst he made an impact and scored some important goals, fans realised his presence distorted team selection, formation and use of players in their correct roles. “There hasn’t been an outcry about his transfer to Major League Soccer because things are different: with the world at his feet in 2004, we wanted him to stay, yet he wanted to leave; now, some 14 years later, it is Rooney that wanted to stay but the fans weren’t too disappointed to see him go.”