Wayne Rooney: humility in the face of adversity

Professional football has developed a New Year ritual based around the transfer window. In January, midway through the season, a two-fold routine emerges.

First, clubs at both ends of the league tables charge around frantically, trying to add players to their squads to bolster the chances of promotion or avoid relegation. Second, managers get sacked if they have lost more than three games in the Christmas period, regardless of their previous reputation or record. This ritual, often a make-or-break period for many clubs, can significantly influence a manager's career trajectory. 

Wayne Rooney is one of the most famous ex-players to have entered management in recent years. He's currently on an undesirable hat-trick. On 2 January last year, he was sacked by Birmingham City in the New Year routine after 15 games in charge. This year, he left Plymouth Argyle by 'mutual consent' on New Year's Eve after 25 games. 

Player to manager: breaking the mould

Rooney was the last great English footballer from a more disorganised period of youth football development. In recent years, the Academy model for developing young footballers has been able to produce cookie-cut, neat and tidy production lines but characterless playing machines. Rooney was different. He had a tacit feel for the beautiful game rather than being a technician. The young man was unpredictable, instinctive and brilliant. He would run and run, dive into tackles and score remarkable goals. Rooney exhibited a raw hunger in his exuberant and expressive love for the game. 

Several ex-Premier League stars have tried their hand at football management. Naturally, the gap between significant playing ability and management capacity is quickly exposed. For the most part, no one has succeeded in attaining the double of being a top player and a great manager. When Rooney became a manager, I wanted him to break the mould. So, I felt a wonderful sense of nostalgic affection watching him pace the English Football League Championship touchline wearing an earthy warrior's beard that highlighted his unique features.

Sadly, the romantic tale does not have a happy ending. Rooney's record suggests that he is not very good at football management. Yet, here's the positive. Despite his short tenures at Birmingham and Plymouth, even the most cynical commentators have noted the striking aspect of his leadership tenure: the affection in which he is held by club colleagues who had never previously worked with him. Rooney extracted genuine affection from those who got to know him despite the on-field failure of his short spells at both clubs. 

Humble and gracious off the pitch

Wayne Rooney has been successful as a human being. In adversity, he has been humble and gracious.

It's not uncommon to hear that to be successful, athletes and coaches have to be selfish. Listen to one of the most famous athletes of all time, Michael Jordan, who said, 'To be successful, you have to be selfish or else you never achieve.' A probably apocryphal story recounts Jordan's coach telling him he was being selfish. 'There's no I in team', he said, to which Jordan replied, 'But there is a me!'

I don’t know how Wayne Rooney perceives the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet I have commended his behaviour to many Christian coaches in professional football. In the face of adversity, he has remained humble, thoughtful and kind. He seems to value people over performance, a rare trait in the cutthroat world of football. While I don't foresee another New Year ritual of sackings for him, I do wish him every success as he continues to develop his vocation.