Rooney: 'The Champions League final is a great opportunity to show what you can do'

It was in September 2005, when Manchester United seemed to be falling apart. Jose Mourinho's Chelsea looked unbeatable, the Glazers had Old Trafford in a state of perpetual revolt and, behind the scenes, Roy Keane's grievances with the club were fermenting. When Wayne Rooney got himself sent off in a Champions League game for applauding the referee it epitomised the self-destructiveness that gripped the club.

Booked by Kim Milton Nielsen in the second half of a group game against Villarreal, Rooney had immediately responded with a sarcastic handclap and, minutes later, found himself sat alone in the stadium's changing rooms. "In the dressing room after I got sent off I was just thinking, 'Why have I just done that?'" Rooney says. "They're things you learn from. You don't want to do that again when it's an important game, you don't want to be sat in the dressing room while the lads are playing and I think that was a big turning point for me."

That remark, made at United's training ground last week, provided one of those rare moments when Rooney allowed something of the self-doubt that lurks within his character to reveal itself. Perhaps that was why, in sympathy, we did not point out that nine months later, against Portugal in the World Cup quarter-finals, he was sent off for exactly the same kind of daft foul against Ricardo Carvalho. Neither was he gently reminded that he still has a tendency – when feeling wronged – to chase back for possession with all the considered restraint of an Alsatian pursuing a fleeing postman.

In Pictures: Manchester United's route to Moscow

Tonight Rooney's position as the greatest natural talent eligible to wear an England shirt is given its stiffest test yet: can he do it in a Champions League final? Others in the United team, Cristiano Ronaldo above all, will also be judged upon whether they deliver on their plentiful talents. But just as crucial for this 22-year-old, who was good-natured and open when he presented himself for cross-examination last week, will be whether he can control the rage that has consumed him on some of the biggest days of his career.

Is there a way to curb the more self-destructive instincts of Rooney, the raw power unleashed from a Croxteth estate on to English football six years ago? "I like to put tackles in and if you put in a tackle that's not quite right on an away ground, their fans don't seem to like it and they rightly boo. So that's no problem to me," he says. "But you don't want to be known as a cheat or anything like that. I do sometimes give free-kicks away and I sometimes argue with referees, but that's just my desire and my attitude towards the game. I don't like to lose.

"What I've tried to do over the last couple of years in the Champions League is not go into certain types of tackles – tackles you can do in the Premier League – and that's worked. I haven't picked up many yellow cards in the Champions League over the last couple of seasons, so I think I've got the balance right."

Big games confer greatness on players. Rooney had given some thought to the effect that a match-winning performance against Chelsea in Moscow tonight would have upon the reputation of himself and his team-mates. "You get recognised as a better player if you play well in the Champions League final," he says. "I thought Ronaldo deserved to win [Fifa] World Player of the Year last year and Kaka got it. I think one of the main reasons he did was because he won the Champions League final. So to play in the final is a great opportunity to show what you can do."

It would, Rooney says bluntly, be "a nightmare" to come this far and lose to Chelsea in Moscow. He has thought about the implications of defeat, of settling down for breakfast with the likes of John Terry and Joe Cole at Friday's England camp. The uneasy silences; the attempts to move the conversation away from the obvious. Against Chelsea, Rooney has broken a metatarsal (in April 2006, before the World Cup), lost the title (the same game), lost the FA Cup final (last season) and hurt his hip (in April), so even for this sunny individual the omens are not the best.

He is reminded – jokingly – of the penalty he gave away in the same Luzhniki Stadium for England against Russia in October and his answer is brisk: "That was actually outside the box." However, in interviews, Rooney is a very different entity to the occasionally snarling figure that exists on the pitch or the devil-may-care training ground joker known as "Wazza" to his team-mates. Rooney is willing but shy and he goes silent with embarrassment when he is asked where he will be holding his stag-do ahead of the heavily trailed Rooney-Colleen nuptials this summer.

Instead he says that his life off the pitch is now "probably the best it's ever been". "I'm eating the right foods, drinking the right things, and maybe not going out as much as I used to a few years ago," he says. He is not remorseful about the superstar status afforded to Ronaldo, or that he is often asked to sacrifice himself on the wing. "It would be nice to play up front and have a chance of winning the game but if he [Ferguson] wants me to play out wide, I've no problem with that. I've quite enjoyed playing up top, trying to get in behind defenders. It gives you that outlet to try and get other players in good positions."

Wherever he plays, a Champions League final is a long way from the kid who once said he wanted to win a trophy with his childhood club Everton. He is not dismissive of his former club, just realistic. "Everton were never going to get [to the Champions League final]. I think it was the Carling Cup I was talking about. When you see Liverpool winning it [the Champions League] a few years back it was a bit painful but to have the chance now to win one game and be champions of Europe, is a great opportunity.

"I think you just have to try to relax, enjoy the game and play the football we know we can. If we go there in there defensively, Chelsea have got a good enough team to punish us so we just have to play the free-flowing football we have played most of the season and, hopefully, that can help us win it."

Sometimes, Rooney says, he can find himself tiring in the last 15 minutes of games with all the tracking back he is required to do but, as he says, "I don't know any other way to play". That is both the problem and the attraction of Rooney. There does not seem to be any changing this young player – neither the good nor the bad in him – which is why games such as tonight's will always be approached by those who place their faith in him with both anticipation and fear.

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