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The Manchester United star reveals all in this exclusive extract from his new book.
The papers decide we’re not going to work together because of an incident that happened during the 2006 World Cup.
In England’s quarter-final against Portugal – I got tangled up with their defender, Ricardo Carvalho, and accidentally stuck a boot on him.
It looked bad, but actually it was a total accident.
As I protested my innocence, Ronnie started waving an -imaginary card around, getting in the ref’s face. The official pulled out the red and I was off.
An early bath. Tournament over.
When I walked to the tunnel, I knew I couldn’t really blame Ronaldo for what had happened because he was trying to win the game for his country.
Besides, in the first half I’d tried to get him booked for diving, so I was as bad as him really. But -moments after my card, -Ronaldo started winking at the sidelines, and to people watching the game on the telly it looked bad, like he was dead pleased about it.
Down to 10 men, England then went out on pens and all hell broke loose – everyone immediately -decided that Ronaldo and I were the best of enemies, and his wink would spell trouble for United in the coming months.
I knew what was in store, so when I bumped into him in the tunnel after the game I gave him a heads up.
‘The fans will be going mad over this one,’ I said. ‘They’ll be trying to make a big deal of it, so we’ll just have to get on with things as -normal because there will be talk all summer.’
He understood, he’s a bright lad, but not long afterwards the papers reckoned he was off to Real -Madrid; apparently me and him weren’t talking, which was -absolute rubbish. The truth is I like Ronaldo, -always have done. He’s a good lad and great to have around the dressing room.
Continue reading Rooney and Ronaldo extracted from My Decade in the Premier League by Wayne Rooney with a foreword by Sir Alex Ferguson. To be published by HarperSport on 13th Sept @ £20 ©Wayne Rooney 2012.
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