“I’m worried,” Wayne Rooney said one afternoon at the beginning of March. “The players are worried. The staff are worried.” Across the table, half a dozen local reporters sat quietly. They looked worried too.
One of the most accomplished players in the history of the Premier League, the player who has scored the most goals for both England and Manchester United, Rooney now manages Derby County, a storied club facing relegation from the second-tier EFL Championship. As he spoke that day, Derby sat five points from safety, with a challenging game at Bournemouth up next. Because of COVID-19, it was Rooney’s first live event with the media at the team’s training center since his tenure as manager began more than a year ago. And there was a lot to talk about.
Rooney is only 36, but there is gray in his beard. His look is fleshy and middle-aged, heading toward Ernest Hemingway. He came to Derby County as a player in early 2020 in a surprising move from Major League Soccer side D.C. United. Step by step, he’d been sliding down the football pyramid after 13 marvelous seasons at Manchester United.
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For nearly two decades, since his first Premier League appearance at age 16 for Everton, he had worked and played to his full capacity. It had taken a toll. He was only 34 when he arrived in Derbyshire to play and help with the coaching, but his was an old 34, like a late-model rental car that has been driven hard week after week. It still looks shiny. But when you turn the key, it hardly moves.
Though Rooney’s skills were fading, his resolve wasn’t. He scored just six times in the 24 games that remained in the 2019-20 season, but his presence lifted everyone around him.
“As a teammate, he was a great leader,” Derby midfielder Max Bird said. “In the changing room, on the training ground, on a match day. My goal every day was to impress him.”
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