Rooney's England Farewell Ends The Golden Generation's Era Of Underachievement

Tonight, Wayne Rooney will take to the field for the final time in an England shirt. The match against the USA has even been branded 'The Wayne Rooney Foundation International', raising money for his charity.

The former England and Manchester Utd captain will appear as a second half substitute in the match, wearing the skipper's armband and collecting his 120th and final national cap.

As the country's all-time record goalscorer and most capped outfield player, Rooney is undeniably an England great.

But an undeniable footnote will be his membership part of an England team lauded for their individual talent but which, ultimately, never delivered as a team.

Rooney's final cameo for the Three Lions also represents the closure of what was ultimately a frustratingly underwhelming chapter in the nation's footballing history.

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I am as big a sucker for footballing nostalgia as you are likely to find. Whenever I start a career mode on FIFA it all goes to shit because I spunk my budget signing footballing heroes with fat salaries who are on their last legs in some far flung corner of the world: Seedorf, Beckham, Pirlo and Wes Brown are just some of those examples from recent years.

They're always fucked by half time and the team ends up with an average pace rating of 49.

If this summer taught us anything, it's that massively exceeding minimal expectations is way more rewarding than massively over-promising and under-delivering. Ill be the first to admit I didn't think we'd have a chance this World Cup; I thought the squad and manager lacked star quality. But they achieved more than Rooney's generation ever managed.

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When Wazza burst onto the international scene at Euro 2004, scoring four goals aged only 18, he was seen as the superstar cherry on the glittering football cake. The national side already had an embarrassment of riches - Owen, Beckham, and the like - and the arrival or Rooney had people believing, at last, that there might be no more years of hurt.

But alas, the heightened expectations only amplified the ensuing decade of hurt inflicted by the post-millennium generation. The same seemingly unsolvable riddles continually contributed to England's downfall.

Why can't Gerrard and Lampard play alongside each other? Why do we always lose penalty shootouts? Why do our keepers keep making inexplicable howlers? Why can't they all just get along and be as good as they are for their clubs?

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Marquee managers came and went - as did tournaments - but none were capable of bringing the best out of the huge talent at the country's disposal. At times it seemed the glut of big name players actually stifled the team; Sven-Goran Eriksson even resorted to playing Scholes on the left wing at one point. The good of the team was sacrificed to satisfy individuals - or club managers.

The likes of Ferdinand, Gerrard and Lampard have since admitted that club rivalries impeded the success of the 'golden generation', as players chose not to mingle while on international duty, essentially dividing the squad - far from ideal in a team sport.

For all its potential, that star-studded crop of players never managed to get further than the quarter finals of any major tournament. And that was on a good day - England's lame lions crashed out to Iceland in the last-16 of Euro 2016, finished bottom of their group at the 2014 World Cup and failed to qualify for Euro 2008.

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Rooney's departure from the England fold represented the end of a hugely underwhelming era; from a group of players whose greatest contribution was thoroughly quashing any sense of expectation going into the World Cup this summer. After all, how could this relatively mediocre squad led by the inexperienced Gareth Southgate go anywhere if the most talented pool of Premiership heroes couldn't?

But Gareth's young lions overcame many obstacles in Russia that were previously insurmountable to those who came before. They appeared to have a genuine sense of team spirit and camaraderie. They won a penalty shootout. They reached the semi-finals. They made us proud.

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So when you're watching the game tonight, take a moment to reflect on Rooney's sparkling career. But also remember the seemingly endless heartbreak his generation brought us: ballooned penalties, goalkeeping gaffes, red cards, Ronaldo's wink, race rows, metatarsals, WAGS, more goalkeeping gaffes, rants, not-given-goals, the Wally with the Brolly, Icelandic thunder claps and even more goalkeeping gaffes.

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As the full time whistle blows, we can at last put all of this behind us for good. Though we, like Wayne, will most likely carry this regret with us forever more. They should have been the best of times. The 5-1 drubbing of Germany should have been just one of a catalogue of world-crushing dominance.

Let's hope that while one generation of underachievement comes to a close, another one of actual achievement has only just begun.

All we need to do now is make sure we don't make the same mistakes as before and impose an overbearing weight of expectation on this new group.

Yeah, right...

Topics: SPORT, Football, England

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey