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Wayne Rooney has revealed the difficulty he had adapting to life as a Premier League superstar, which led to locking himself away to drink and “raging” on the football pitch.
Rooney, Manchester United and England’s record goalscorer, is releasing a documentary on Amazon Prime.
And the now Derby County manager has discussed all aspects of his career, including how he struggled to deal with the pressure of playing for United.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Rooney said becoming a top player at a young age was “something I wasn’t prepared for” after growing up in his council estate in Croxteth, “always getting into fights and arguments”.
“It took a long time for me to get used to that and figure out how to deal with it,” Rooney told the newspaper. “It was like being thrown in somewhere where you are just not comfortable. That was tough for me.
“I had made a lot of mistakes when I was younger, some in the press and some not in the press, whether that’s fighting or whatever.
“For me to deal with that, deal with stuff that was in the newspapers, deal with the manager at the time, deal with family at the time, was very difficult.
“In my early years at Manchester United, probably until we had my first son, Kai, I locked myself away really. I never went out.
“There were times you’d get a couple of days off from football and I would actually lock myself away and just drink, to try to take all that away from my mind.”
On the pitch, it meant playing with anger – although Rooney suggests that made him a better player.
“Early on in my career, I played with a lot more anger and picked up the odd red card,” he said. “The anger was all the time when I was drinking, when I was having these moments. Still constantly in my head, I was raging.
“When I learned to control it, it took that away from me. It was almost as if being right in my head took a bit away from my game. Not being right in my head gave me that added unpredictability.”
Yet one notable example of a costly red card saw Rooney sent off for England in a World Cup quarter-final against Portugal, which ended in defeat on penalties.
United team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo played a prominent role in appealing for Rooney’s dismissal – for stamping on Ricardo Carvalho – and was famously then caught on camera winking to the Portugal bench.
While that incident prompted plenty of discussion as they returned to United, Rooney says: “After I was sent off in the World Cup quarter-final against Portugal and we lost on penalties, I got Ronaldo out into the tunnel.
“I said: ‘Listen, you’re going to get a lot of stick from the press, I’m going to get a lot of stick from the press, my focus now is on Man United. There is no issue with me whatsoever, I would have done exactly the same trying to get England a win against Portugal and this is a big year for us and we have every chance of winning the league.’
“My attention, once we were out, completely flipped back to Manchester United.
“There was never any issue. I actually tried to get him booked in the first half for diving. I’m playing for England, he’s playing for Portugal, do whatever you can to win.”
