Wayne, No Shine
‘ITS hard not to blow our own kazoo today as the rest of mankind learns what Anorak readers knew yesterday: Wayne Rooney is the new Wazza.
|
| England’s No.6 |
So here goes: Pzzzzzz!
The Express, says that Rooneys Englands team-mates have christened him Wazza (Pzzz!), in light of his likeness to Paul Gazza Gascoigne.
The similarities are there. But only the other day Rooney was the new Pele. So what happened? Did he eat a bad kebab while out on a bender with his new showbiz mates?
Well, nothing happened. Rooney is still Rooney. But the dash to place the raw 18-year-old talent into some kind of context has seduced many opinion formers.
And today we learn that Wazza (Pzzz!) is, in the opinion of Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, not a patch on the legendary Brazil No. 10.
Rooney is no Pele, says Scolari in the Mail. There is only one Pele and there will only ever be one Pele. We could wait a thousand years and still another like him would not come along.
So thats that then. Rooney is no Pele official! And while pundits now wonder if hes the new Johann Cruyff, the new Maradona or the new Matthews, Chelsea get down to business.
And the business at Chelsea is the trading of human flesh.
Todays news from the Chelsea market is that the Blues are so keen to get a rope around Steven Gerrard, theyre offering Liverpool £20 million plus Scott Parker and Damien Duff.
Considering Duff went to Chelsea for £17m barely a year back and Parker arrived from Charlton with a £10m price tag round his neck, that means Gerrard will have effectively cost Chelsea £47m.
Of course, what with performance-related clauses in signing-on contracts and such like, the real figure is lower, but how much lower? The Blues want their man.
Oh, and Chelsea will also offer £30m for Rooney, a bid that if accepted the Sun says would take the players weekly salary to £85,000 a week.
But what we really want to know is not what England are going to do tonight, nor how Germany succumbed to a humiliating (Express) defeat to a second-string Czech side (Pzzz! Pzzz! Pzzzzzz!), but what all this rain is doing to our Tim.
The Sun has caught up with Englands hero as he prepares for todays match against world No.137, Swiss qualifier Ivo Heuberger.
Up until now, Heubergers singular claim to fame is that he used to date Miss Martina Hingis.
But tomorrow he could be the man who ruined Tims chances of another semi-final defeat…’
Posted: 24th, June 2004 | In: Back pages Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
