Rooney most likely to become first player to break 50-goal barrier for England

London: England vice-captain Wayne Rooney is the one player most likely to break the 50-goals barrier for the Three Lions after his brace against San Marino on Friday, which took his tally to 31 goals.

Rooney now stands behind just four other English players Sir Bobby Charlton, Michael Owen, Gary Lineker and Jimmy Greaves in term of most goals scored for the country. England has boasted of good strikers, great strikers, but none of them has ever managed to get over the 50-goal barrier, according to a report in the Daily Mirror. Many have come close. Some have seemed destined to do it, only to be thwarted by injury, fate or form, it added. But Rooney, who turns 27 next week, still has the best part of a decade ahead of him, and he has already demonstrated his ability to change his game, and emerge, eventually, as a ball-playing midfield goal threat, rather than merely an out-and-out attacker, it said. Crucially, too, a man whose role for England will increase, not decline, over the second part of an international career that started at 17, it further reported. ANI