Rooney scoops award

Youngster voted best in Europe

Wayne Rooney has ended a fabulous year by being voted Europe’s best young player.

The Manchester United striker, who was the England star of Euro 2004, finished top of a poll organised by Italian newspaper, Tuttosport. They asked thirty leading journalists to select the best Under-21 talent currently playing across the continent.

The top five were:

1st - Wayne Rooney (Manchester United & England)
2nd- Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United & Portugal)
3rd - Fernando Torres (Atletico Madrid & Spain)
4th - Arjen Robben (Chelsea & Holland)
5th - Obafemi Martins (Inter Milano & Nigeria)

On receiving the award, Rooney said:

“As far as I am aware, this is the first international trophy I have won. I have been fortunate to receive a number of individual honours over the past twelve months, including the BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year Award. Obviously it is nice to hear my name being mentioned in the same breath as both Pelé and Bobby Charlton but, to have the sort of career they had, I have to concentrate on improving all the time. It is no point having a couple of good years and then not fulfilling my potential.”

Tuttosport hope their award will come to be regarded as the young star’s equivalent of the European Footballer of the Year. Dutch midfielder Rafael van der Vaart of Ajax was last year’s inaugural winner.