Wayne Rooney has opened up on the anger and mental health problems that plagued him throughout his career.
Ahead of the release of an Amazon Documentary on his career on Friday, Rooney has laid bare his internal struggles and how he tried to cope with them through drinking, as at the time he felt like he couldn't discuss such matters with his teammates.
The Manchester United legend admits that those feelings manifested themselves in football and made him 'more angry on the pitch.'
Rooney was adored throughout his playing days for his fighting spirit but it did lead to costly moments where he would occasionally go too far - such as in a crucial match against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in 2006.
“We knew if Chelsea won then they had won the league that day,” he told the PA News Agency.
“Until my last game for Derby, I always wore the old plastic studs with the metal tip.
“For that game I changed them to big, long metal ones – the maximum length you could have because I wanted to try and hurt someone, try and injure someone.
“I knew they were going to win that game. You could feel they were a better team at the time so I changed my studs. The studs were legal but thinking if there’s a challenge there I knew I’d want to go in for it properly, basically. I did actually.
Click here to watch 'Rooney' on Amazon Prime Video
“John Terry left the stadium on crutches. I left a hole in his foot and then I signed my shirt to him after the game… and a few weeks later I sent it to him and asked for my stud back.
“If you look back when they were celebrating, JT’s got his crutches from that tackle.”
However, karma wouldn't take long to strike as late on in the game Rooney got those same studs caught in the turf during a challenge with Paulo Ferreira and broke three metatarsals just weeks before the 2006 World Cup.
He somehow recovered enough in time to still go to Germany but he was nowhere near his best and still feels regret for his performances, which once again ended in a moment of red as he was sent off for a stamp in the quarter-final defeat to Portugal, and for stealing Jermaine Defoe's spot in the squad.
“Looking back, I should never have gone to that World Cup,” he said. "It was my first World Cup I would have been going to. Obviously I broke my foot not long before it and still to this day I feel terrible for Jermain Defoe.
“He went out, (did) all the training camp and then literally I come in, he left.
“And that was hard as well to take because I literally took his spot at the World Cup and took his dream away of going to the World Cup.
“But I wasn’t ready, I was never fit to play in that tournament and I think that showed in performances.”
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