Wayne Rooneys Funniest Football Stories Part 2!

253 goals for Manchester United and I, without shame and without any hesitation, say that you're the best centre-forward that I ever played with at Manchester United and you're always... There's no shame in that! No, but to be fair, you have these, what would be, you have these sort of Cantona fans, you have these sort of, you know, you're fans of other players over the years that you think... But I, without hesitation, say you're the best centre-forward that I ever played with without a shadow of a doubt. Do you feel that that's, do you feel like your career at Manchester United is respected as much as it should be? Even though you're the top goalscorer for Man United, Kane is for England but you're here for England, do you class yourself as a goalscorer? I wouldn't say I was a natural goalscorer, I just wanted to stand on the ball. I thought tactically he was the best I've worked with, it was the stuff off the pitch which was difficult for the players in how he worked but I remember him coming in saying he wanted to send forwards to have 15-20 touches a game. That's Haaland though isn't it? Yeah it's exactly what Haaland does, I think he had a Bayern Munich tournament and he'd score one goal, two goals a game and I always wanted to play and enjoy the game. You dropped in midfield though didn't you a bit later on and your game intelligence, did you enjoy that because you were getting on the ball so much? Yeah I just… Not many strikers would do that could they? I get the impression you didn't listen to managers. Playing in midfield for me was easier than playing up top in the end because up top you obviously need the intensity and the high speed run and you can use your experience. Obviously when I was a bit older you can use your experience and sit in and pick up space and whatever to play in midfield so it was a lot easier physically for me to play in midfield. I weren't like Rui was, box to box I was in midfield and staying there. The boss would to be fair when you used to drift out to the left, if you moved too much from the centre he would go mad at you at times only for that, he wanted you more central up front. Yeah but then he goes and plays me on the left and plays me on the right so he can't have it both ways either. I get it, you go from Van Nistelrooy who was actually better player than you get credit for as well, I thought he was a good footballer. Yeah but he stayed there so go from him playing there then me going there and as you said drifting out wide. I think that's the thing with Rashford now when he's played as a forward, the hardest thing for me to learn was the patience of staying there. I think Jesus is like that, I say that quite often about him, he hasn't got the patience just to stay there and actually be. Yeah I think for young players now that's probably the hardest thing for them to learn. You said something then about he does have you as the main centre forward and you feel like you get enough acclaim. I go back to you and Ronaldo almost coming through at the same age, how did you feel about the Ferguson putting you on the left? Almost feel like you're playing for him, so you're talking about I could have scored more goals if I was more selfish. Those times in big European games I felt like okay he's not going to work as hard as Wayne so we'll leave him at centre forward and you'll have to play wide. Yeah but then he'd win you the game. Yeah because you're not back yourself, you could have won them the game. Yeah but then I think from a defensive point of view there was just more thrust. Obviously if I play out wide I wouldn't do my job, I would get back and help out defensively where Cristiano probably wouldn't do it. And then he causes them, he's a threat then and it pins their full backs back. So there was never any frustration with that? Yeah obviously I wanted to play my position but I think that's where the manager probably got it right in terms of the team winning and being successful. They probably needed that so I wasn't really interested in individual awards and stuff. I wanted to win with the team, that was always my goal. Wayne was playing at DC United at the time. So I went down to see Wayne on a weekend and we had a night out on a Saturday night and then on a Sunday we'd gone to play at the Trump National in Washington. And we'd get to the golf course and there's Secret Service everywhere. I was like, you know, I didn't know at the time but there's suits everywhere, you can see the things in the maze, like what's going on here? And it took me like two minutes, I went, the President's playing here today, it's his course, he's definitely playing here today. Anyway, we get on the first tee, the caddy says, yeah, the President's playing here. We'd been wandered about three times already, you know, wah, wah, wah. We set off playing, having a few drinks. Next thing we can just see this f***ing entourage come onto the course, right? And it's just like 20 buggies on one hole, I'm like, what is going on with this guy? Anyway, the caddy who was taking us round was like his normal caddy. And I said, oh yeah, he has his every single time he's here and he just plows through the course. You've just got to come through, play through, play through. Get out of his way, get out of his way. We'll let you play through, what is it? F***ing Donald Trump, go on Megan. F***ing don't be going in the rough though, if you're playing through, don't be going in the rough, just get through us. I can just see that, if you'll find his ball in the rough, you've got to sneak it onto the fairway. Just give it a little knock, you know what I mean? It's here, Mr. President. They're telling us about the snipers in the trees. There's a boat, there's a lake there. There's a boat going up and down the lake with snipers on the boat, just in case. And he said to us, he said, wait till you see the box. I went, what's the box? He went, it's in between the 30th and the 14th hole. There's like an escalator that's had the back cut out of it. And there's like a raw iron box that's on it. And he said, if anything happens to the president while he's on the course, they just bundle him into this box. Helicopter swoops in, hooks onto the box and just carries it off. I'm like, what the ****, are you full of ----? I'm saying to the camera, are you full of ----? Anyway, sure enough, gets to the 30th hole. There it is, this ******* box on the back of this escalator. Like, ******* unbelievable. What's his swing like? You know what, right? He was 72 at the time. How did you end up playing a couple of balls? Okay, so what happened is, right? So he's plowing through the course. We get to about, I think about the 14th hole, and secret service come onto our own. We're about to tee off. Excuse me, guys, you have to move aside because I'm afraid the president's coming through. Please don't talk to him. If he speaks to you, then you can obviously speak to him back, but just leave him alone. And I'm like, Wayne Mooney, mate. He's going to speak to Wayne Mooney because Wayne had been actually coaching his son, Baron, on the White House lawn leading up to this. And Wayne had already been invited to, Wayne had already been invited to his house at Christmas and his house at Thanksgiving. White House, not his house, the White House, you know what I mean? It's not a two-up, two-down in downtown Washington. So I'm like, he's going to speak to Wayne. Anyway, sure enough, comes around the corner onto the, we've re-teed off and our balls are down the thing, but we're still by the tees. And he comes around the corner, Wayne, how are you, Wayne? He's ******* up, Wayne, it's Wayne. And so he's talking and he comes over to Chadwick. We meet him and we're like, so Wayne about three weeks before had scored his hat-trick for DC United in a game where they won five-two, right? So now he's come onto that hole, right? And we've got like 20 buggies, including, remember Mayor Giuliani, New York mayor from the 2001, you know, the 9-11 disaster. Mayor Giuliani was the mayor then. And he's like his lawyer or something. So he's on the hole with him as well, not playing golf. So like, he's there and it's like, just people, photographers, just following him everywhere. And he's like, oh, we're playing a goal. So this guy, everyone's looking at him. This guy, this guy, last week, he scored five goals for DC United, five goals. And I'm looking at Wazza going, go on, connect him. Didn't you, didn't you, Wayne? Five goals, Wayne? And Wayne's like, yeah, yeah, I did, yeah. You lying bastard. ------- turn the trivia ---- out. Anyway, so we then played like the next hole and the one after that. And then he carried on going like, so he had his four ball and me and Wayne was a two ball. So we had like a six ball and a couple of goals, but just like surreal. Did he introduce you? So yeah, yeah. We chatted like, it was great. Invited us to the White House whenever we wanted to come. Oh yeah, cheers. I'll go next week. ------- nice. Unbelievable. Whenever you want to come to the White House, no problem. Come on, mate, come and see me. I fetched a bag. I fetched some cans, Donald. You know what? He was, he was like perfectly polite, lovely guy, very chatty, brilliant. And we just played a bit of golf, had a chat and he fucked off. Were you good? Played off two. He was very good. He was very good, yeah. Straight down the middle of his drive, straight on the green, second shot both times, yeah. He was a good player. Surprising for a 72 year old, yeah. He was massive, yeah. But it was like one of the, possibly the most surreal day of my life, that, yeah. I can imagine. Especially if you had a few drinks as well. Oh, we had, we were steaming, the pair of us. We were steaming, we were steaming. ------- hell, we were steaming. Once he's fucked off on his buggy, you just looked at each other and gone, what the **** just happened? He was one of them. What has just happened? He was one of them. Like, I've got a photo of me, Wayne and him on the picture and it's like, what the ****? Like, when I pull it out, people just go, what? It's like, it's ******* unbelievable. Jeez, man. Has he got his red cap on? Yeah, yeah, there's that on, yeah. Of course he has. Trump. Key, no, Key, what was it? Key, Key. Make America great again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's it. That's what he had on, yeah. He did have it on. He had it on, yeah. As if he plays golf in that. I'll tell you this, we came off the course, right? We came off the course and it was a Sunday that day, but even though it was a Sunday, he was supposed to have had this, like, it was all publicised, this massive meeting that afternoon with the Taliban. He missed it. I'm going to do 18. Me and Wayne had sat at a bar there, right? He sat on that table there with Ivanko and Ivano and the whole ******* shebang are all there just having a meal and he came off with the Taliban. You know what? One of them around. Dan, you're the one. I'm not bothered about that meeting. I fancy a club sandwich. Chips. Telly what? A sandwich for me now. What about this one? Toughest physical opponent that you've faced? I could have phrased it differently, like, dirtiest opponent you've faced from Liverpool. Is that for him? I think Cara's up there. I've got a few scars on me off Cara. A few stitches off him. Let's go through them. Take one. Take one, United. Look at that. Look at the arch in the back. That's two yellow cards in the space of three seconds. Oh, this is lovely. Look at that. That's a straight red card. You went off, didn't you? You bottled it. I didn't bottle it. I took it off for the stitches. Stitches? And he caught you on the knee. Look at you. Don't fancy it away at Anfield. Do you know that one? Away at Anfield. You get kicked and you know you're struggling. It's horrible. You just don't want to show any emotion to it. And then the blood was coming down and the doctor told me to go off. What did you think about games at Anfield? You've played for Liverpool's biggest rivals, United and Everton. What was it like going to Anfield? Was there an extra thing about you that wanted to win at that stadium? Yeah, 100%. That's the one stadium I want to go and win at. It's obviously grown up Everton fan playing for Manchester United. That's where I get the most joy when I win the game at Anfield. But I always thought Anfield, you can play into Liverpool's hands and Liverpool want you to get the ball, try and play out from the back. I remember Derkite, Stevie, Torres, Kareb, them pushing up, the midfielders pushing up. And if you do that, the crowd get up and it can be one of the horriblest first 30 minutes of a game you can have. So we always used to say, take no chance, get the ball, turn and play in the channels and then feel your way into the game, get some control of the game. But if you start trying to play football at Anfield and Liverpool are rough the way they was, then you're asking for trouble. I think the biggest thing I always found that different, Anfield's a much tighter pitch than Old Trafford. There's too much space and you feel like you're on your own, whereas at Anfield you felt like we could really get after anyone. Big European like Manchester United, good football on the side, possibly the same as the Liverpool team now. Was that one of your toughest games, going to Anfield the way we were as a team, that we weren't as good as you, but in terms of going to Anfield, how tough it was? Yeah, 100%. There and Chelsea. Chelsea was under Jose Mourinho the first time. Anfield and Chelsea was... You just knew you'd have to... If you won the game, it'd be an ugly win. You wouldn't go there and win, playing nice football, getting the ball down, moving it. You'd nick a goal. You'd done it with John O'Shea last minute. You just don't enjoy the game of football there. Even when you win, you enjoy it after, but actually as the game's going on, you don't enjoy it. I'd be interested to know what the process was behind making that move to Manchester United, and I suppose the motivation for making that move. It was very difficult. Obviously growing up, Everton fan, Everton was the club I loved. I think I just, from that two years, from 16 to 18, I'm an ambitious person. I want to win trophies. I want to play at the highest level. I knew to achieve that, I had to leave Everton. Although it was so difficult, it was the right decision for me. Also, it was the right decision for Everton. Everton were struggling for money. They were in debt. The money they got from me helped them out a lot for that. I think it was right for both myself, but also for Everton. Then you have all that time at Manchester United and brilliant success, trophy after trophy, and it was the right move. How did you come to the decision that it was time to leave Manchester United? Not necessarily to go back to Everton, but what was the thought process behind thinking that was enough at United? Just not playing. Not playing enough games. Ideally, the perfect scenario for me would have been to finish my career at Manchester United, but it wasn't to be. I wasn't playing enough games. I was still 30 years of age, still wanting to play. In order for me to do that, I had to leave. It was a very difficult decision, of course, but I think, again, it was the right decision for me, although it was a tough one for me. The second career at Everton, although you achieved some things I know you wanted to achieve, scoring in the Derby, top scoring the season for Everton, I know as well, but it wasn't what you dreamed of, the return to Everton, necessarily? Yes, it was a tough year for us all. Having different managers was tough. I think, first of all, we didn't start the season well. Ronald Kerman got sacked. He brought David Lundsworth in, and then, obviously, bringing Sam Aldyce in. It was tough for everyone. I just felt I should have been a bit more selfish. I almost refused to go and play in midfield and say I wanted to carry on playing in a more advanced role, which probably hindered my chances of doing even better there. At the end of the day, we finished the season well. We finished eighth in the league, which, from December, looked almost impossible to do. I finished top goalscorer, so the owners had their own ideas in terms of me leaving the club. I didn't want to leave the club, but, again, that's what they wanted. Why was that? I think, obviously, I was on a high salary and they wanted me off the books so they can bring new players in. It was a while before they made me aware of that. I was just asking for the truth. I wasn't going to cause any problems. If that's what they wanted, that's what I would have done. It took a while to get there, but, eventually, we got there and then, obviously, I made the decision to go to the States.