Wayne Rooney plans to stay in the game after his playing days are over by becoming a manager.
The England captain revealed his coaching ambition as he prepared to make his 100th appearance for his country in Saturday’s Euro 2016 qualifying clash against Slovenia.
He said: ‘It would be a big call, at this age, to say I wanted to be England manager one day — but I would love to go into management. I would love to get a job somewhere when I finish playing, hopefully, and see how it progresses from there.’
Rooney made it clear that his immediate ambition is to win the World Cup but the fact that someone of his standing is thinking about working his way into management ranks is a boost at a time when many recently retired stars prefer the glamour of the TV studio to leaning how to be a boss by striving away in the lower Leagues.
It reflects Rooney’s love for the game, which he said on Friday has not changed since a brief flirtation with boxing when he was 14.
Rooney, who started his career at Everton before moving to Manchester United in 2004, revealed he was persuaded to stay at Goodison by the club’s former boss Colin Harvey.
He said: ‘Colin Harvey was a massive help because when I was about 14 I stopped enjoying playing football. I had enjoyed it all my life until then, but I was being told to do different things that I didn’t want to do and it was down to Colin that I carried on.
‘He sat me down and made me fall back in love with it. From that moment on, that’s when I said to myself, “This is what I want to be doing”.
‘At that time I was doing boxing as well as football but that’s when I stopped going to boxing and focused solely on football. Thankfully it was the right decision.
‘At that age you just want to go and play football. And then around about that age, you start getting told what different things to do on the pitch, you’re learning the tactics of the game. I felt at that moment that I just wanted to go and enjoy it. I felt that it was too much and I remember going home and telling my dad that I didn’t want to go any more.
‘My dad was upset with me over it. And then I went in to see Colin Harvey and he was great for me. From then, I stopped going to boxing and concentrated 100 per cent on football. From then, that’s when the progression was rapid for me.
‘He just said he had seen players throughout his career and that he hadn’t seen any player with the talent that I had, so I would be making a mistake. He said he would always be there to help me and support me.
‘And he said, ‘If you keep working hard, then you will be in the first team quicker than you think’. Once he said that, I thought, ‘He used to be Everton manager, so he knows the game’. Thank goodness I listened to him.’
England’s head coach Roy Hodgson will play his strongest team available against Slovenia on a special day for Rooney.
He claimed the forward is one of the country’s ‘greats’, adding: ‘His technical and tactical qualities are a given.
‘But it also takes a lot of mental strength to be an England player. You have to be prepared for periods when you’re under severe scrutiny.
‘You have to have a great passion for playing for your country as well. When you’ve played a lot of games and the criticism is coming at you, there must be a moment when you wonder whether you need all this. So you have to have that passion.
‘At the World Cup the criticism affected him after the Italy game but he was still able to get himself back on track.
‘The mental strength and passion to play for your country is important if you’re going to be a major player. Ashley, Steven, Frank and now Wayne Rooney — I’d put all of those in that great category.’