Wayne Rooney says he’ll be more than happy if former team mate Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal fail to make it through to the World Cup finals in South Africa next year.
While England go in to their last two qualifying games unbeaten and safely through, Portugal are currently third in qualifying Group One, two points behind second-placed Sweden. They must beat Hungary and Malta in their last two matches, both at home, to salvage any realistic hope of a play-off spot.
Speaking ahead of Saturday’s match away to Ukraine, Rooney said:
It would be nice to see Portugal not there.
In the last two tournaments they’ve knocked us out and when we didn’t qualify for Euro 2008, we got a lot of stick from Ronaldo.
On a personal level too, things have not gone Rooney’s way against the Portuguese. At the World Cup in 2006 he was sent off for a stamp on Ricardo Carvalho. To rub salt in to the wound, Ronaldo appeared to encourage the referee to brandish the red card.
But Rooney says Ronaldo’s involvement, and the subsequent backlash in Britain, was a blessing in disguise.
I still got it when I played for my club but that is just normal. In that instance, I know I could have taken a lot more.
I was disappointed with getting sent off. I never meant to stamp on him but when I watch it, it does look like I’ve made a stamp.
Of course it’s a straight red card. I’ve got no argument about that. I’ve got a chance to put it right in the next tournament.
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October 9th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Shame on Rooney for such a stupid and unprofessional comment like that.
And don’t make any false hopes, because England’s qualifying group couldn’t have been more easy and that will have its effects next summer when they against real competition.
October 9th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
so what splinter ???
October 9th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Don’t step on my groin, Shrek.
October 10th, 2009 at 2:29 am
well what ronaldo did at the world cup was bad, but there is no excuse to say anything like that.
By the way, i would have thought messi was most likely to say this:)
October 10th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
i laughed at this at first and thought “haha why would he say that?” but once you think about it, why wouldn’t he want portugal not to qualify? there a fair side and like wazza said have knocked them out a couple times so the less competition the better
October 12th, 2009 at 4:21 am
true MVreddevil17. if u’re pretty much unbeaten like schummy or valentino rossi in their line of sports, u would hope for tough competitors to put up some challenge.
but where the competition is tight like in the world cup, less competitors = the better.