{"id":4223,"date":"2025-03-17T16:47:28","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T16:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buzz7.info\/?p=4223"},"modified":"2025-03-17T16:47:33","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T16:47:33","slug":"england-and-man-utd-legend-wayne-rooney-reveals-he-almost-played-for-another-country-louis-sealey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/?p=4223","title":{"rendered":"England and Man Utd legend Wayne Rooney reveals he almost played for another country Louis Sealey"},"content":{"rendered":"
Former England and Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

England legend Wayne Rooney<\/a> has revealed he came very close to playing for another country.<\/p>\n

Rooney established himself as one of England\u2019s greatest ever players<\/a> during an international career that spanned 15 years.<\/p>\n

The footballer-turned-manager amassed 120 caps \u2013 the second-most in history \u2013 and scored 53 goals, which was the record before Harry Kane became England\u2019s all-time leading goalscorer in 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Rooney was a mainstay in the England team<\/a> for over a decade, it turns out things could have been very differently as the legendary striker very nearly ended up representing the Republic of Ireland instead.<\/p>\n

Speaking on The Overlap<\/a> podcast, Rooney revealed he was approached by former Ireland boss Mick McCarthy in 2003 about pledging his allegiance to The Boys in Green.<\/p>\n

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Wake up to find news on your club in your inbox every morning with Metro\u2019s Football Newsletter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Rooney, who is of Irish descent through his father, was open to the idea but rejected the approach after he was only offered a place in Ireland\u2019s U21squad.<\/p>\n

Asked which country he would have represented other than England, Rooney said: \u2018Mine would be Ireland. It would have been great.<\/p>\n

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\"Scotland<\/div>
Rooney scored 53 goals in 120 games for England (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018Mick [McCarthy] called me up when I was 16. I spoke to [former Everton manager] Lee Carsley and he spoke to Mick.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was close to doing it and then they said they wanted to call me up to Ireland U21s. I was like, I\u2019m not playing for Ireland U21s, if you want me pick me in the proper team!<\/p>\n

\u2018And then it never happened and I started playing for England.\u2019<\/p>\n

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\"Blackpool<\/div>
Mick McCarthy wanted Rooney to represent Ireland (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Former Arsenal and England striker Ian Wright then said: \u2018Wow, that\u2019s close then! So if they pulled you into the first-team you would have went?\u2019<\/p>\n

Rooney replied: \u2018Probably, yeah.\u2019<\/p>\n

Football associations approaching players to convince them to switch allegiances has become increasingly common in recent years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"England<\/div>
Declan Rice and Jack Grealish both committed to England (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Declan Rice and Jack Grealish both switched to England after spending years in Ireland\u2019s underage teams<\/a>. Rice even made three caps for Republic of Ireland before switching.<\/p>\n

\u2018I had a problem with this when I was with England and we started doing parades for Jack and Declan to convince players who to play for,\u2019 said Manchester United legend and former England coach Gary Neville.<\/p>\n

Source: metro.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former England and Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney (Picture: Getty) England legend Wayne Rooney has revealed he came very close to playing for another country. Rooney established himself as one of England\u2019s greatest ever players during an international career that spanned 15 years. The footballer-turned-manager amassed 120 caps \u2013 the second-most in history \u2013 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4225,"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4223\/revisions\/4225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}