From Merseyside park pitches to Old Trafford, Jay McEveley and Wayne Rooney will meet up again on Saturday afternoon as opposing captains in the third round of the FA Cup.
The pair will shake hands before kick-off and no doubt briefly recall memories of a start of a career McEveley was convinced would lead Manchester United and England captain Rooney to the top.
“I played against him for a junior team. You could see back then. The keepers were only tiny and the goals were massive.
“He was just shooting from everywhere and scoring from 35 yards from when he was a kid,” said McEveley, who, like Rooney, was snapped up by Everton as a schoolboy and is now Sheffield United’s defensive leader.
Wayne Rooney's deft flick gave United the win against Swansea last Saturday
“He took that on to the youth team at Everton and into the centre of excellence teams. He always played in our age group, a year up. He was something special. You could just tell, always scoring goals. If we were struggling in a game he would always pop up with a few goals.
“When I left for Blackburn, that’s when he really kicked on. He was 15 I think and he started getting into the under-19s, the reserves, youth cup teams and stuff and the year after he was first-team.
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“Certain players, like a winger, they can dribble and take people on, but he can do the lot, like Steven Gerrard. He is an all-round player. He can tackle, he can pass the ball, he can run, he can score goals, he can head it. He can do everything.
“He was head and shoulders above everyone. And Everton was the right place for him to be at the time, bringing him through. They looked after him and brought him on brilliantly.”
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Rooney, 30, moved on to United in 2004. The winning goal he scored against Swansea last week, which earned Louis van Gaal’s side a first victory in nine games, took him to within 11 goals of Sir Bobby Charlton’s all-time high, removing, in McEveley’s eyes, any doubt his standing in the game.
“I don’t think there should be a question. I think it’s silly,” added the Liverpudlian, who has been capped three times by Scotland.
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“His record speaks for itself. He is the record goalscorer for England and he will probably get the Manchester United record. How can you question someone who has done that, at that level for that long? You can’t. I think world class is definitely his bracket.”
Rooney’s roll of honour also shows a Champions League title and five Premier League winner’s medals but two losing appearances in the final is the nearest he has got to lifting the FA Cup.
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And McEveley is determined to try to keep the missing honour off his CV for a further year with Sheffield United looking to further enhance a cup reputation that included them reaching the semi-finals of the FA and League Cups over the past two years under Nigel Clough, before he was replaced last summer by former Southampton and Reading manager Nigel Adkins after promotion from League One again just escaped the Blades.
McEveley, who moved to Blackburn, Derby, Barnsley, Swindon and then Bramall Lane after leaving Everton without playing a senior game, said: “It’s going to be a proud moment for me leading Sheffield United out at Old Trafford. It’ll be one of the great moments of my career.
“But the whole attitude of the squad is that we are relaxed going into this tie. For us, there’s more pressure in League One games on a Saturday afternoon, even though we’ll be playing in front of 75,000 people at Old Trafford.
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“We’ve had a good run in the cups over the past couple of years, beating some big teams and running other big teams close.
“We’re not daunted by the challenge and that’s the attitude we’ve had all through our cup runs. We’ve taken on Tottenham, West Ham, Southampton and QPR feeling the same way we do going into this one.
“It’s an opportunity to write our name in Sheffield United history and I don’t see why we can’t go there and get a result.”
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