For one brief moment Kieran Trippier sounds worried. The England defender is talking about how his Atlético Madrid teammate Diego Costa calls him Rooney and how that means everyone else calls him Rooney too when a thought crosses his mind. “It’s just because I’m the only English player here and Rooney’s the only one he’s heard of; it could have been anything,” he’s saying. “He just calls me that because it’s the first name that came into his mind. And everywhere I go, they shout Rooney. When I warm up, everyone’s shouting it. Everyone. I have Diego to thank for this. Of all the names. I don’t think I …”
And then there’s a pause. Two men sit with him at Atlético’s Cerro del Espino training ground, empty now after the morning session. “Do you think I look like Rooney?” Trippier asks. No. “Do you think I look like Rooney?” No. And if that’s your only concern, things must be going well. “I’m just loving every moment,” Trippier says after the first question of what becomes a long chat; “I’m loving every minute of it,” he says after the second; and “I’m very happy to be part of it,” he says after the third, a pattern confirmed long before the nickname comes up, certain words recurring. “Happy” and “enjoying”, mostly.
Written by Sid Lowe in Madrid
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/nov/11/kieran-trippier-atletico-madrid-tottenham-rooney-darts-interview under the title “Kieran Trippier: ‘Everywhere I go they shout Rooney at me. Everyone’”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
