Rooney, Wayne

Wayne Rooney, in full Wayne Mark Rooney, (born October 24, 1985, Liverpool, England), English professional football (soccer) player who rose to international football stardom as a teenager while playing with the English Premier League powerhouse Manchester United.

Rooney made his professional debut with his local club Everton at age 16, becoming the youngest goal scorer in Premier League history in his first season (the record has since been surpassed). After two years playing for Everton, he transferred to Manchester United in 2004. With Manchester the precocious young striker quickly became one of the most popular football stars in the United Kingdom, as well as fodder for the country’s notorious tabloid industry along with his girlfriend (later his wife) Coleen McLoughlin. The couple’s late-night exploits and home life were widely disseminated by the press, and McLoughlin (Coleen Rooney from 2008) was able to parlay her exposure into a media career.

Rooney was named England’s Young Player of the Year in each of his first two seasons in Manchester. In 2006–07 he helped lead United to a Premier League championship and a victory in the Carling Cup. He was a key contributor to United’s Premier League and Champions League titles in the 2007–08 season, which were followed by the team’s first FIFA Club World Cup championship, with Rooney scoring the only goal in United’s 1–0 win in the tournament final. Rooney and Man U won a third consecutive league title the following season. In 2010 he was named both the Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year and the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year as the best player in English football for the 2009–10 season. Rooney was a part of United’s league-title-winning squads in 2010–11 and 2012–13, and during the 2011–12 season he scored a personal-best 27 Premier League goals. He continued to be the team’s top goal scorer in many of the following years, although United failed to win any major titles over that span until the club captured the first FA Cup of Rooney’s career in 2016. In January 2017 Rooney scored his 250th goal for United, passing Sir Bobby Charlton to become the club’s all-time leading scorer. Six months later Rooney left United, having ultimately scored 253 goals with the club, and rejoined Everton. After just one season back with his first professional team, however, Rooney signed with D.C. United of Major League Soccer. In 2020 he became player and coach for Derby County of the English Football Championship league. He retired from competitive play the following year and was named manager of the team. However, he left in 2022 to become manager of D.C. United.

Rooney was named a member of the English national team in 2003 and that year became—for a time—both the youngest player and the youngest goal scorer in England’s history. He starred on an England squad that advanced to the quarterfinals of the 2004 European Championship (Euro 2004), but a slow recovery from a foot injury limited his effectiveness in the 2006 World Cup finals, where he went scoreless. England failed to qualify for Euro 2008, but Rooney led his country in scoring in qualifying matches for the 2010 World Cup, where England lost in the round of 16. He was suspended for the first two games of Euro 2012 owing to a red card he received in England’s final qualifying match and ultimately appeared in only two contests in the tournament, as England was eliminated in the quarterfinals. Rooney scored his first World Cup goal at the 2014 tournament, but England was surprisingly eliminated from that event after playing just two games (both losses), which was the earliest the country had ever been knocked out of the World Cup. In August 2014 Rooney was named captain of the English national team. During a European Championship qualifying match against Switzerland in September 2015, Rooney scored his 50th international goal, breaking Sir Bobby Charlton’s record for the most career goals scored for the English national team. He retired from the national team in August 2017 with a total of 53 goals in 119 international appearances.

In 2006 Rooney’s autobiography, Wayne Rooney: My Story So Far (ghostwritten by journalist Hunter Davies), was published.