“It was stupid,” said Wayne Rooney on his reckless kick out at Miodrag Dzudovic, “I regretted it as soon as I did it. I honestly don’t know why I did it. It was one of those moments which I live to regret now.” Those sentiments may be echoed by tens of thousands if his ban isn’t reduced or, God forbid, England fail to qualify from their group.
Ask him why he did it and his explanation leaves you to draw your own conclusions, “There was no tackle on me beforehand, so it wasn’t retaliation. I didn’t set out to ‘beat’ him; it just happened,” commented the United striker, unable to fathom a reason for his consequential red card, “I just can’t explain it.”
One may look at Rooney and think “thug”, Piers Morgan, for what it is worth, thinks Rooney should be suspended for “repeated fouling of basic grammar & spelling” on the social media site Twitter; let alone stamping on players, swearing down cameras and kicking out at innocent Montenegrins.
However, in the news that The F.A is to appeal against the three-match ban with Dzudovic having written to Uefa arguing Rooney’s case, it must be better to question the cause of the outburst not simply place the blame at Rooney’s door and be done with it.
His kick out at the Montenegrin was unprovoked, it was unnecessary and it was a violent act that broke the rules of football. As far as sporting definitions go it was an act of hostile aggression. Looking at the theories of aggression may give you the reason for Wayne Rooney’s moment of madness.
One possible explanation is Sigmund Freud’s argument in The Instinct Theory; Freud states we all have the potential to be aggressive and that cannot be eliminated. The Austrian poses a strong case in explaining Rooney’s outbreak; aggressive feelings build up and if they are not correctly released they’ll bottle up within the individual and can start to cause psychological damage. Therefore aggression must be released and the release of that anger is called catharsis. A cathartic experience is supposed to allow a release of emotion and tension so that the individual feels less aggressive. Rooney’s kick certainly did that with his hindsight comments eliding to the theory hitting the nail on the head, or in this case the boot to the ankle, “I regretted it as soon as I did it. I don’t know why I did it.”
There may be a better account of why he committed the foul, though; John Dollard founded the frustration-aggression hypothesis which proposes that aggressive behaviour always follows on from frustration and that the existence of frustration guarantees aggression. Rooney may well have been frustrated for a number of reasons that are listed as causes of aggression; other emotional factors, low levels of serotonin due to depression or simply under-performing. It has been well-documented that his father’s antics may have affected the striker and the game hadn’t been Rooney’s best in a Three Lions shirt, leaving those two as points worth considering.
In view of the fact that the FA are, invariably, only too willing to penalise Man United for indiscipline much more harshly than they do other clubs, and, even when there has been just cause to appeal against an FA decision, they seem to delight in increasing the penalty, citing frivolity, would it not seem to be poetic justice if UEFA were to be equally as bloody-minded and to increase the ban on Rooney as being frivolous ?
It would, after all, take him out of the area of possible injury and exalted expectations and keep him fresher for those that truly appreciate him.