September 8th 2015, England vs Switzerland, the score is 1-0 to England as Raheem Sterling is brought down and finally the moment seems to have come.
In front of 75,000 people at Wembley Wayne Rooney steps up and scores the penalty that makes him England's all time leading goalscorer, overtaking Sir Bobby Charlton's previous record of 49 goals.
Things are a lot different now, when Charlton set the 49 goal record England were still the champions of the world, after beating West Germany 4-2 in the 1966 world cup final. That appears to be where the big argument lies, whilst Charlton has a world cup winner and has four tournament goals to his name Rooney has struggled to impress on the big stage, having only scored one goal in a tournament where England didn't even make it out of the group. Gary Lineker has arguably the best record, scoring 10 of his 48 goals for England in world cup tournaments. Having said that not all the onus can be put on Rooney, after all it is a team game and Rooney's teammates performances have also been questioned. Sir Bobby was surrounded by world class players whereas the generation of Rooney's world class team mates such as David Beckham, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard have also failed to step up to the mark for their country.
It's hard to argue with Rooney's record, to become the nation's all time top scorer is no easy feat and nothing can be taken away from the Manchester United striker, however what is more impressive a penalty against San Marino or a goal that sends the nation to a world cup final (this of course referring to Charlton's two goals in the semi final against Portugal) Rooney has had his critics over the years player for England, even insulting fans after they booed the team off the pitch after a goalless draw against Algeria. Rooney has also been booked eleven times and sent off twice in his England career whereas Charlton and Lineker both have a clean discipline record for their country.
Wayne Rooney is only 29 and could and most probably will go on to add even more goals to make his record stand for many years to come, although he deserves a lot of respect and admiration for breaking the goal scoring record until he performs on the world stage he can't be mentioned in the same bracket of Charlton and Lineker. That being said Rooney will still go down as an England great and his record will stand for a long time to come.
Source: DSG
