It’s at times like this when England desperately need a hero.
A Braveheart figure that can rouse the troops with some fiery words of inspiration to spur the team to glory.
England face a deceivingly tough test against an Iceland team that have shocked everyone with their heart and determination – so now more than ever a firebrand leader is needed to roar the Three Lions on.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Wayne Rooney stepped up to send a message to his young England side ahead of the crucial last 16 clash on Monday.
Only it wasn’t really the passionate battle-cry or tactical master-class many fans probably had in mind.
The Times’ chief football writer Henry Winter has probably trimmed Rooney’s words down a wee bit to fit a 140-character tweet, but the main thrust of it was this…
Rooney says his message to #eng players in Nice will be: "Try and win."
— Henry Winter (@henrywinter) June 23, 2016
Try and win? The players and the country are going to need more than that, Wayne. We can’t imagine there would be too many sympathetic England fans after the game philosophically proclaiming ‘well, at least we tried.’
Obviously Winter got a slew of rather choice responses in reply from people on Twitter…
One of the great wordsmiths of our era. @henrywinter
— Jordan (@Jorc94) June 23, 2016
@henrywinter I like it. Just for clarity, does he mean ‘try to win’ or ‘try – and win’? Would hate for players to get confused and miss it.
— CK (@ephemeraljoy) 23 June 2016
@henrywinter mind-blowing.
— Tom (@livingjoke) 23 June 2016
@henrywinter my favourite half-time team-talk is: “Let’s play…better.”
— Ben Cobley (@bencobley) 23 June 2016
@henrywinter I can imagine that’s just what the likes of Moore, Robson, Butcher & Adams would say in the same situation ?
— laurence medaney (@lupper78) 23 June 2016
@henrywinter inspiring
— kateyrah (@ruuuusey) 23 June 2016
@henrywinter wow thats deep ?
— bob graves (@marinerbob1) 23 June 2016
@henrywinter rousing
— Hate Speech Monitor (@HiEnergi) 23 June 2016
@henrywinter Sure that’ll have gotten the squad pumped up for the game..
— Liam Watson (@liam_Watson72) 23 June 2016
@henrywinter Right up there with Vince Lombardi
— Guy Rippon (@guyrippon) 23 June 2016
@henrywinter when asked “how?” Rooney responded – “by putting the football in to their goal more times than they put it in ours”
— Brad Watkins (@Brad_Watkins10) 23 June 2016
@henrywinter I like the inclusion of the word ‘try’.. Oozing confidence.
— Andrew Davis (@andydavis1978) 23 June 2016
@henrywinter it’s a little bit “Any Given Sunday”. Goosebumps
— Graham Clements (@tgc1) 23 June 2016
To be fair to Rooney, one fan who actually watched the press conference was impressed by the Manchester United man’s performance…
@henrywinter I actually thought he gave a great press conference henry
— Pat Frost (@KitmanPat) 23 June 2016
Rooney admitted that England have to be more ruthless in putting sides to the sword, after his team squandered a number of chances to put games to bed during the group stages.
He also said people should stop looking past Iceland who have been a surprise package at Euro 2016, despite being the smallest nation in the competition.
