Rooneywatch: Day One
Wed Mar 31 08:41AM
Let's start with an easy one. Can anyone tell Early Doors whose right foot is encased by one of those plastic boots?
That's right, class. It's Wayne Rooney.
The sound of those ankle ligaments going twang served as a starting pistol for reams of hysterical Rooney injury coverage that ED would not be surprised to learn had been pre-written, like an obituary.
The Daily Mail's considered response to the crisis was: 'Not since Cinderella has so much rested on one foot'.
ED would direct the Mail's headline writers to the last time Rooney got injured before a World Cup. Or the time before that, when it was David Beckham.
In the absence of any medical evidence about the extent of the damage, other than the opinion of a Scotsman in his late 60s, we are currently in the realm of fevered guesswork.
What's the injury? We don't know. What does it mean for United? We don't know. Will he miss the World Cup? We don't know.
All we have to go on is a body part and a lot of rolling on the ground in agony. Did you see the way he winced? Must be bad. At least the media hopes it is - if he's back at the weekend, all this fuss will look a bit silly.
Now Early Doors is not a doctor. And even if it were, it would be hard-pressed to ascertain the extent of Rooney's injury from 600 miles away.
Nevertheless, Her In Doors was subjected - in between expletives - to a barrage of half-baked diagnosis as ED watched several thousand replays.
"It's his metatarsal. His boot's off, it's definitely a metartarsal... look, look.... actually I think it's his Achilles... no, it's his ankle, he's obviously broken it... loss of balance... isn't that one of the symptoms of MS?"
ED was in good company, as TV, radio and print journalists began stabbing in the dark with more enthusiasm than Boris Becker in the broom cupboard.
Anyway, if it's relatively bad (and even if it isn't), expect forensic analysis of the injury across the media and a glut of factoids, complete with mocked-up X-rays and baseless claims from a 'medical expert' with all the credentials of The Simpsons's Dr Nick.
Nobody even knew what a metatarsal was until Becks snapped his - now any member of the public could give you a detailed description of its plantar surface, which is of course grooved antero-posteriorly for the passage of the flexor tendons, and marked on either side by an articular eminence continuous with the terminal articular surface.
Given declining educational standards, the government might be well-advised to ditch GCSE biology and just let pupils read the paper instead.
There's plenty to learn in the tabloids, including this from Page Three girl Rhian, 23, from Manchester: "Rhian is impressed by the Hadron Collider's atom smashing. She said: 'We have the chance to generate particles that are sensitive to dimensions beyond our four-dimensional space-time. I'm a bit of a smasher myself, but I've got nothing on the Collider.'"
In keeping with the spirit of dumbing down, this year's 'metatarsal' is 'ankle' - a body part most modern delinquents have heard of, if only because that's where their electronic tags are located.
Early Doors is used to taking its eye off the ball, and actually saw Rooney hopping about in the corner of its screen. Consequently, it was cursing the demise of England's World Cup hopes even before Ivica Olic scored the winner.
That may have been the root of United's shambolic defending. Perhaps Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic noticed Rooney's injury and the resultant boost to France and Serbia's World Cup hopes, and simply stopped concentrating?
Olic, whose Croatia side failed to qualify, simply waltzed through and stuck the ball past Edwin van der Sar, who was presumably thinking how much easier that possible semi-final in Cape Town now looks.
It was certainly a bit of a passion-killer for the rest of the country.
The only reason these big Champions League games get such good ratings is because three-quarters of the audience have tuned in to see the pride of England fail.
(Early Doors refuses to believe that anyone actually supports English clubs in Europe. Football's unwritten-law-makers might wish it so, but why would teams that are loathed when they play domestic football be any more appealing on midweek evenings? Sure, there can be the odd exception, like Fulham's Europa League tonking of Juventus, but where's the patriotic romance in United grinding their way to the quarter-finals and occasionally beyond every year?)
So there would have been much gleeful celebration around the country as Bayern completed their history unrepeating last-gasp comeback - just as there was last year when Andres Iniesta sent Chelsea out, or this season when Lyon scored that hilarious last-minute equaliser at Anfield. Only for a nation's gloating to be cut short by the painfully inevitable Rooney injury.
What is the German for Schadenfreude, anyway?
HERE'S THE LATEST ON WAYNE ROONEY
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Jose Mourinho sticks the boot into Serie A again: "My situation is clear. I am very happy at Inter but not in Italian football. Why? Because I don't like it and it doesn't like me. Simple." Is it just ED, or is he obviously going to end up at Liverpool?
FOREIGN VIEW: It's not often a
man getting bitten in the face by a dog is reported with undisguised mirth, but when that man is Diego Maradona? All bets are off. The story made the from page of today's Sun, but with a rare duff headline. Why 'Hand of Dog' when 'Hound of God' is so much better?
COMING UP: At least there's no chance of any England players getting injured tonight - Arsenal are playing. If you can put up with Clive Tyldesley banging on about what a feast for the eyes
Arsenal v Barcelona is, it should be a good one. But ED can't be the only one hoping this so-called purists' delight descends into ugly, senseless violence. Some 17 seasons into the Champions League era, you probably don't need telling the match kicks off at 19.45. Also
Internazionale v CSKA Moscow, which will probably feature Mourinho saying something mad.