Ed Smith on how Wayne Rooney can learn from Sachin Tendulkar

There’s nothing quite like being wrong to make you think. Twice last week sportsmen have proved me spectacularly wrong. First, Sachin Tendulkar reached 14,000 Test-match runs. And that’s not the amazing part. It took him fewer innings to get from 13,000 to 14,000 than any other 1,000-run chunk of his career. A case could be made that he is at his best now, at 37.

My wrongness is that four years ago I thought his decline might have been permanent. At Mumbai in 2006 I watched a man who seemed to have not only lost form, but to have fallen out of love with the game. He looked not only scared of getting out, but also unsure why to go on.

I wondered: having achieved so much, what did the game still have to offer him? Now we know. Tendulkar’s hunger and resilience matches his brilliance and the combination, quite simply, makes him the best since Bradman.

I was equally wrong about Wayne Rooney, only in the opposite direction. I never thought he’d come off the rails. Before this summer’s World Cup, I watched his interview with Alan Shearer. Shearer asked how he was handling the pressure. “I don’t feel pressure on the football field,” he said lightly, but convincingly, as though it was the first thing that popped into his head, rather than something a sports psychologist had coached him to say.

And I believed him. David Moyes, the Everton manager, described Rooney as “the last of the backstreet footballers”. It was a lovely summary of Rooney’s fearlessness, that combination of skill and energy, the bravura spirit that instinctively led him to take on defenders. He’ll be fine, I thought, not the kind to fret on the big stage.

It didn’t look that way at the World Cup. Rooney seemed weighed down, dulled by expectation. And it doesn’t look that way now as he struggles to control the ball and his emotions, a shaken bottle about to burst. What happened to the Wayne Rooney that didn’t feel pressure? He must be wondering the same thing.

Tendulkar and Rooney were destined for rare greatness, even from teenage. Tendulkar has gone on and done it. A year ago, Rooney looked placed to do the same. But now, as never before, there are real doubts that he will become the player we once assumed he would be. So what can Rooney learn from the Indian master as he tries to relocate the brilliance in his boots?

Make no mistake, Tendulkar’s career has not been as serene as it might look: there have been arguments with coaches and match referees, an unsatisfactory spell as captain and long phases when the muse has deserted him. Tendulkar has had countless moments when frustration could have overwhelmed him. He has never blown his top, never lost his dignity. Instead, frustration has inspired him.

Above all, his career has been played out under the shadow of phenomenal expectation. Footballers in England have to deal with being heroes. In India it is even worse: they are meant to be gods.

I remember having dinner with Rahul Dravid in Mumbai. The line of people scrambling for a word with the great man ran to hundreds. Tendulkar has endured far more even than Dravid — and infinitely more than Rooney. That burden would have crushed a lesser man. Instead, it steeled him.

Tendulkar has come to the conclusion that there is one place where he is free from the hassles of fame. There is one realm where he cannot be pestered. It is called the crease.

With the bat in his hands, Tendulkar is the conductor of his own life, not just a participant in a soap opera. There, out in the middle, no one can stop him being himself — not a restless media, not overly demanding fans, not interfering coaches or greedy agents. It is the ultimate irony: the greatest actors are never freer than when they’re on the stage.

That is the way for Rooney to find the way out of his present difficulties — he must have the bravery to express himself on the pitch, to make it his sanctuary. If he allows himself to become embittered and resentful, he will not only become estranged from his fans, but also from his talent. No wonder the ball is bouncing off him at the moment; he probably would like to repel the whole game. Instead, he must learn to love it again.

“Channelling anger” is a truism of sports psychology and every great sportsman has moments when the frustration seems insurmountable. Critics doubted whether Steve Waugh had the temperament or the bravery to make it in Test cricket. He never forgot nor forgave them, and opposition bowlers bore the brunt of Waugh’s revenge.

Disappointment, rage and resentment must become a spur. Champions must be alchemists of their emotions. The rest of life — even the bad bits, especially the bad bits — must be turned into creative fuel.

Rooney had better be quick, too. He is not old, but he’s not that young, either. Who among us would feel confident in predicting a very long career for him? Zinédine Zidane and Ryan Giggs could reinvent themselves as older players. But with Rooney you sense he will find it harder once the pace and the fire fade. Time is not quite running out; but it will be soon enough.

Shamed by alleged events off the pitch and embarrassed by events on it, Rooney could be forgiven for feeling sorry for himself. It would be a normal thing to feel. But he doesn’t aspire to normality, but to greatness. And greatness, as Tendulkar has showed, demands a superhuman degree of resilience and emotional dexterity.

Rooney must locate his inner Tendulkar, a genius who got even with his critics by scoring hundreds. For Rooney, in every sense, it’s time to turn the pressure into goals.