Rooney must do more than top a list

With my dodgy blond highlights glistening in the scorching Portuguese sunshine, it seems like only yesterday that my friends and I were jumping around deliriously inside the Estadio Cidade de Coimbra in celebration of Wayne Rooney’s double against Switzerland at the 2004 European Championships.

Drunk on beer and excitement, we toasted the arrival of an extraordinary teenage talent whom everyone assumed would soon rule the planet. We had hit the jackpot. England finally found itself a world-class superstar — or so we thought.

More than a decade on, Rooney is set to earn his 100th England cap in today’s Euro 2016 Group E qualifier against Slovenia at Wembley and possibly add to his 43 goals for his country. But we still do not know if he is up there with the best. It is a strange one.

At 29, the striker has enjoyed a glittering club career with Manchester United, he is the most capped forward in the nation’s history and tonight, he will become the ninth member of England’s 100 Club.

He should be England’s pride and joy, but he is not. In fact, few footballers divide opinion as much as the Three Lions skipper. Is it because he built our hopes up too much at the outset? Possibly. He was so good as a teenager that many feel cheated he did not go on to emulate the feats of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. But that is unfair; those two global icons are a class apart and would have been in any generation. Being a rung or two below them is no disgrace.

Rooney is the most gifted striker England has produced since Tom Finney in the 1950s and though he is not the best centre forward we have had — Jimmy Greaves and Gary Lineker are way ahead — no one has boasted more talent.

Can he be classed as an England great? Just about. And if, as expected, he goes on to break Bobby Charlton’s goalscoring record of 49 goals for England — he needs seven more — that status is assured.

However, to be universally loved, he needs to touch the nation’s hearts by delivering something special at Euro 2016 or the 2018 World Cup. Failure to do so and he would be only a name at the top of a list.

Adrian Clarke is a former Arsenal midfielder who has played at every level of English football. Now an experienced sports journalist, he writes for publications around the world. Follow him on Twitter @adrianjclarke.