Wayne Rooney’s Brother Selects Early Retirement; Joins the NY Red Bulls

Tweet
Today, the MLS has sustained another black eye to its credibility as the New York Red Bulls have drafted Wayne Rooney’s younger, worse but better looking, brother of everyones favorite love rat Wayne Rooney. John Rooney, who was originally a youth player for Everton, and came up through the same system as his older brother, has been playing most of his professional football in the English 2nd Division and seems to hope playing in an MLS soccer jersey will reinvigorate his career. Clearly he doesn’t know much about the MLS. The Maccesfield Town midfield got a run in front of the scouts in Florida last weekend after signing for the MLS and its seems clear they were impressed, but not too impressed as the was selected in the second round. While this is all good and well, and some may hope will lead to more English players joining the MLS, in my mind it merely reinforces its status as an inferior league that serves as a well paid retirement home for the best of Europe.

The MLS is many things, but one thing it isn’t is popular. It’s not taken seriously in any country other than the US and one could argue that its not terribly respected there either. The signing of Wayne Rooney’s brother to the Red Bulls is yet another sign that the league is equivalent to the English 2nd Division, or worse, and its teams have no real place competing for top flight players with clubs in Europe. Wayne Rooney, Cesc Fabregas, David Villa, Lionel Messi; not one would look to go and play in America before the age of 35. Furthermore, its bad for the league to be purchasing big name players who have gone past it to get some exposure of fill seats when the real issues plaguing US soccer go unaddressed. The failure of the MLS as a credible league is a symptom of a larger cultural problem in American soccer, best described here in this excellent piece by Ken Sweda on World Football Commentaries.

In the end, I think neither john Rooney or the New York Red Bulls will get what they want out of this deal and he will be a big flop, but maybe I’ll be wrong, Thierry Henry will take him under his wing, and John Rooney will join his brother at Manchester United in a few years.

Written by: Matthew Wall, editor, soccerprose.com