Wayne Rooney is as much an England legend as he is a Manchester United one, and before Harry Kane came along, he was the country's record goalscorer.
Rooney broke onto the international stage as a 17-year-old, lighting up Euro 2004 and went on to enjoy a great international career that saw him go on to captain his country.
However, things could have been very different, and on the latest episode of The Overlap, the ex United striker said that he would have declared for Ireland if he was given a senior call-up, but the then manager Mick McCarthy only asked him up to the u21s.
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"Mine would be Ireland, it would’ve been great.
"Mick (McCarthy) phoned me up because he spoke to Lee Carsley. I was close to doing it, but then they called me up for Ireland U21s, and I said I’m not playing for the 21s. I play for England U21s.
"So it never happened and then I went to play for England."
Rooney was then asked by Arsenal great Ian Wright if he would've accepted the call-up to the Irish squad before being capped for England, if it was at senior level - and replied "yes."
English players representing Ireland isn't a new thing, and they have benefited greatly from having some footballers who were born in Britain.
However, they have also lost a lot of talented stars, with Jack Grealish and Declan Rice being the two most notable naems, especially as they both did play for Ireland at u21 level.
Rice even represented the Irish senior team on two occasions for international friendlies, and Gary Neville admits that he felt uneasy about England's pursuit of the Arsenal star.
"I had a problem with this for England because they had to do a beauty parade – for Jack and for Declan – where they were having a meeting with the managers, and we had to convince both of them who to play for.
“I’m really strong about this – I was like, 'Tell them to pick their f*****g country’. It’s not a job interview going to play for your country – it’s not like, ‘This is how many caps you’re going to get’.
"Just play as well as you can and you might get in, you might not. I felt quite strongly about it at the time that we shouldn’t be going to interview players and begging players.
“The Association did [meet them]. My point was at the time, ‘No, don’t go and meet them. They want to play for England, they’ll play for England’. It’s a feeling – it’s not a conversation!”
Ultimately both players did choose England in the end, but more recently, West Ham striker Evan Ferguson was also being pursued by them as his mother is English, but he chose Ireland and stuck with it.
