The king is dead, long live the new king! On the day of Charles’s coronation, as more than 2,300 official guests began to flock to Westminster Abbey for the glitzy ceremony, Wayne Rooney’s earlier statement began to play out louder and through a series of events, it has now become very appropriate.

Just as the UK had its new king but only now offered him the crown, football should, according to Wayne Rooney, break the dual power of the past 15 years and anoint its new king by giving the title to the footballer he thinks he deserves more. than anyone else.

His current manager and former ace for England, Everton and Manchester United is none other than Erling Haaland, and he doesn’t hesitate to choose him over several other candidates, even though he is a player of the “hated” club. Manchester City, the team that he himself saw all his (football) life, as on the opposite bank of the river.

Rooney, the top scorer in the history of Manchester United and England, most appreciates people who know how to shoot the ball into the goal. And the 23-year-old Norwegian, the absolute galaxy of the modern era of football, is a striker who scores in every way, with incredible ease, like throwing stones into the sea from two meters!

For a new king to be crowned, the previous one must somehow surrender the sceptres. Of course, there is still a lot of debate about which of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi was the best player in modern times and perhaps the entire history of football, but in any case, neither of them is able to defend the crown anymore. . Their duality is now in the past, simply because time is invincible.

CR7 decided to lower its level to the maximum when it preferred Al Nasr’s (endless) petrodollars to a Champions League level team, but the venture was not successful. Things are not going so well and his future is in doubt. His poor (compared to investment) performance causes a lot of resentment, and after his team’s successive failures, he has more and more scenarios to pick up his hat and go it alone before the super-rich Saudis have time to…take him out!

Messi experienced the pinnacle of his glory by winning the World Cup last December, but from then until now he seems to have “turned off” football with no desire to play at the highest level. His failure to lead Paris Saint-Germain to Champions League glory and low (for his class) flying over the past four months has made him persona non grata not only in the eyes of the club’s fans, but also of its owners. His hefty €1.7 million fine and a two-week ban from games and training in Paris show that the upcoming divorce at the end of his contract next month will not be smooth sailing.

“We had the era of Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, now it’s his era, the era of Haaland. When you have a talent like him around you, you just have to enjoy it, even if he is wearing a Manchester City shirt,” Wayne Rooney wrote in his column in The Times before Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo started to have big problems in their clubs, and before Haaland managed 35 Premier League goals, breaking Shearer and Cole’s 30-year record.

Rooney had no doubts about the name of the new choice: “Erling Haaland is the best footballer in the world at the moment. Lionel Messi is at the top, but no one plays better now than a striker who, although I have broken records myself in this position, is breathtaking at the levels he reaches. He is the best in the world because of his game, the game he shows on the pitch and the mentality he shows. If you’re looking at who wins the Ballon d’Or, it should be him, assuming he maintains his form for the rest of the season. Why not? His records are a sign of a player whose standards do not fall!