UK Football

photo: Gordon Flood

If you watched Manchester United’s Champions League match yesterday, you would have noticed Wayne Rooney’s obvious dive during one of United’s best attacks.  Rooney went down in the box without having been touched, clearly penalty hunting, which is uncharacteristic of the England man and a huge disappointment for fans like me.

Wayne Rooney is normally the type of player that’s incredible to watch because of his work rate, he never gives up on a ball, and really has no flashy moves for getting past opponents so he bullies his way into the box.  Really entertaining to watch.  But for Rooney to take a page out of Cristiano Ronaldo’s book, and to take a dive instead of fighting for the ball, is just disgusting for every Manchester United fan and England supporter worldwide.

I suppose though in the grand scheme of things, at least Rooney apologized after the incident to both the United players and Villarreal for having done such a thing.  Sir Alex Ferguson even commented on the incident in an after match interview: “He apologised to me and said he didn’t mean to do that.

“I think he’s been watching Robert Pires too much. At least he apologised to their players. You’d never see Pires do that.”

Fergie did raise a good point by picking out Villarreal’s Pires for diving all the time, and really we all saw that match, and the only thing that Villarreal was actually good at was diving.

But that’s no reason for Rooney to respond with the same tactics, and I’m disappointed in the United forward, and I would hope he’s disappointed for resorting to such a low state himself.  Rooney used to be the sort of player you could put up as an example for the Ronaldo’s and Pires’ of the world who lay down at their first opportunity hoping for the ref to bail them out, instead of fighting through defenders, because you always have a better scoring chance when you stay on your feet.

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