Wayne Rooney has credited video games as a factor behind Manchester United’s success during his playing career, saying they helped build communication and teamwork off the pitch.
Speaking on The Wayne Rooney Show podcast, the former United, Everton and England striker revealed that he and his teammates regularly played the military game SOCOM on the PlayStation Portable during bus and plane trips.
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“I really believe a big part of our success was playing on the PSP,” Rooney said.
“It got us communicating more – we used to play it on the plane, on the team bus. It would be me, Rio [Ferdinand], Michael Carrick, John O’Shea, and Wes Brown. You have to talk, you have to be tactically right, revive people when they get killed, it was a massive part of our success.”
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Rooney, who won five Premier League titles and a Champions League under Sir Alex Ferguson, said the players’ in-game habits even mirrored their styles on the pitch.
“Michael Carrick was the calm one, sneaky, lying low and throwing grenades quietly. I was straight in, front line of the trenches,” Rooney joked.
Not everyone was a fan, though. Dutch goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar often grew frustrated with the noise.
“He used to get annoyed because we’d all be shouting instructions, flanking opponents and working as a team,” Rooney recalled. “He’d try to sit as far away from us as possible.”
