A philosophical look at Wayne Rooney’s beauty
Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche goes well in detail to talk about what self-identity is and how one should look to discover oneself. While he believes that using religion to seek one’s identity can be tough, doing that through expression and consumption of art can be much more effective. In this case, art includes theatre, literature and even history. Nietzsche believes that art offers us a glimpse of how our life can be and it allows us to break away from what is termed as ‘herd mentality’.
While Nietzsche doesn’t include sport in his idea of self realisation, it is one subject which in the modern-day has become a means for people to not just enjoy, but a means for people to relate to. For me personally, sport offers us a chance to explore ourselves and express ourselves. That isn’t because of why sport is an art in itself, but because it offers us stories and characters that we can connect with even without being direct participants in the sport.
Sport or football specifically, has everything that films (another art form) have to offer - albeit, in a real life sense. It has stories of revenge, love, hate, betrayal, pain and immense joy being played out on the pitch instead of being scripted on the silver screen. Sports watchers often fall in love with characters and teams not for the sake of it but somewhere deep inside, they find themselves there. They find a part of themselves in these characters because they exhibit traits that they either have in them or they strive to have in them.
It was important to put this philosophical context down, when I talk about the character and uniqueness of Wayne Rooney. That’s because Rooney, as a character and as a footballer, had too many things that an ordinary person can relate to and connect with. As a result, many ordinary people across the world found themselves in the Manchester United legend.
It is key to look at Rooney’s roots to understand what he really means. Rooney was born in a working class neighborhood of a Liverpool-based town called Croxteth and being from the streets of Merseyside, he grew up playing in the treacherous, dusty and rugged surfaces of the town. He mentions in his autobiography that him and his friends often used the shutter of a shop as a goal and more often than not, it was Rooney who would strike the shutter hard. Johan Cruyff, in his autobiography, has talked about how playing on the rugged streets increases footballers’ balance on the ball and they aren’t easy to foul because they are used to going past obstacles while playing on the streets. Rooney displayed these traits from a very young age.
As his career rose and underwent positional and tactical changes, Rooney always had this instinct of being a boy from the streets who made it big. The catch lies in the fact that he was always himself. Even during his time at Derby, he had the aura — even as a deeper midfielder. He never lost this charm of being the boy from the streets and the way he played showed that despite all the wear and tear, his approach to the game stayed true to his background as a working class kid from Croxteth.
He was a combination of two things that have an evergreen charm about themselves — working class and staying true to your identity despite everything. We, as individuals, often strive to be that. We don’t want to lose our roots. While some of us do lose our roots, it is sometimes never intentional. We often look down on those with a silver spoon and admire those that achieved greatness through sheer graft and self improvement. Rooney had both of these aspects in himself. He encapsulated both these factors in the perfect way.
His approach to the game will perhaps never be copied because of how the game is scrutinsed these days. It was brash, sometimes brutal, no-nonsense and direct. Yet, it was technical, skillful and oozed flair. It was a perfect combination of both aestheticism and pragmatism. He had this attitude of a workhorse that Sir Alex Ferguson loved — he never gave up. This identity is what ordinary school kids from the 90s kids really wanted to copy as footballers. They scored goals, but they had this argumentative aura about themselves which came as a result of their rebellious nature which truly expressed itself on a football pitch. Often, this rebellious nature was never seen anywhere else. It only existed on the pitch because like Rooney, football was a form of expression for them. Because after all, that’s what masses from the working class are about. Football, sport, films and literature, for them, is an escape from the hardships of life. They can vent, express without fear of judgement on the pitch. Rooney did that and everyone loved it. Because that’s what they wanted to be, in a much deeper sense.
While injuries did impact Rooney after a point but controversies are an inseparable part of his personality. Whether they are true or not, they became an idea that set Rooney apart from others in a football environment that is now sanitised, protected and often secretive. Football’s now become about PR, image rights, commercialism and portraying footballers as perfect human beings when they really aren’t. No one is. Rooney had nothing to hide and perhaps, he had no ways to hide them. He came from an era when football was more pure and less protected. There was no fakeness from footballers on social media, no hollow Twitter apologies and no agent deflections to save face. There was barely any attempt to portray Wayne Rooney as a perfect footballer for the sake of commercial purposes or PR. There was no fakeness involved. He had his flaws because why not? Every human does. He, like ourselves, made mistakes in his career. He perhaps, has regrets too. But these flaws became a part of his personality and character. It was out in the open — a bit like Diego Maradona and it was this lack of secrecy that made his character more genuine than footballers that now exist in a bubble that clubs and agents portray as utopian. All that, when utopia can perhaps never truly be achieved.
While utopia is an imagined concept of attaining perfection, Rooney’s character and personality lingers very close to the Golden Mean. It’s a rather desirable middle ground between the extremes when footballers today are often geared towards showcasing a fake sense of utopia.
While doing all the above, Rooney won trophy after trophy and proved that he’s a winner sewn from a cloth that has become rare. It was the cloth of being the representation of what the working class is, what is stands for, it’s flaws and what it can achieve when given the chance.
And perhaps, that is why Rooney’s name carried a global aspect irrespective of the presences of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka or Lionel Messi. And going by my personal experiences, Rooney was the reason why many people of my age began watching football. Even for a kid from a random town in India, Rooney was appreciated and adored. It is hardly a coincidence that India has a major percentage of working class people. Subtly, the liking for Rooney wasn’t only because of his playing style. It was because of all the above things.
Nietzsche, in his works, talks about the idea of ‘amor fati’ or ‘love of fate’. It refers to the fact that to us, everything happens for a purpose and whatever happens — be it good or bad, shapes or character in certain ways. We should accept it as a part of ourselves. What Rooney had, good or bad, is a part of his legacy and the ills are barely sanitised. It’s been accepted and perhaps, even cherished or forgotten. That is what makes Wayne Rooney unique. That is why we may not see another one like him.
