The Guardian:
An exhaustive day of medical checks, frayed tempers and delicate negotiations ended with Wayne Rooney landing back in Germany late last night for the World Cup. He described himself as "delighted" but Sir Alex Ferguson was vehemently against him going and will be dismayed today by the disclosure that Sven-Goran Eriksson is toying with the idea of using the forward in England's final group match against Sweden on June 20.
No sooner had Rooney been reunited with his team-mates at their Black Forest hotel - to whom his first words were reportedly "the big man's back in town" - than it transpired that Eriksson had informed his coaching staff that, fitness permitting, he would like to field Rooney for 30 minutes if England have already beaten Paraguay and Trinidad & Tobago to confirm their place in the first knockout phase. Having scored a rare victory over Ferguson, Eriksson believes a second-half appearance could help Rooney's rehabilitation, particularly if there is little riding on the game.
England's head coach is not reckless enough to take such a decision without receiving the approval of the team's doctor, Leif Sward, but Ferguson will be full of foreboding at the mere suggestion. The Manchester United manager has strong reservations about Rooney taking any part in the tournament, never mind accelerating his recovery to make his comeback in only 12 days' time. Tellingly, some of Rooney's own representatives are also concerned that Eriksson may be gambling with his long-term fitness. The Swede is close to the end of his employment with the Football Association and there is a suspicion that he has become demob happy.
"There is a huge difference between running round a few poles and kicking a lightweight football around to having 13 stone of Argentine defender jumping on your recently broken foot," said one of the people involved in the process. "If Rooney gets injured in the course of the tournament then you can expect the mother of all Glaswegian explosions."
The Times:
Wayne Rooney returned to Germany and the World Cup finals last night, lifting spirits before England's opening match against Paraguay on Saturday, but the "will he, won't he" saga will be replaced by the when. Club and country were divided last night over the latest diagnosis and while the striker declared that "the big man's back in town" on arrival at the team hotel, he cannot yet be certain of when he will play his first game.
The 20-year-old has defied many expectations by recovering sufficiently to be included in Sven-Göran Eriksson's 23-man party — his place confirmed on a flying visit back to Manchester for a scan yesterday — but buoyant England fans will not want to celebrate just yet.
Rooney will certainly have to rely on his team-mates to get them through that first match in Frankfurt and, concerned by the healing still required on the fractured metatarsal, Manchester United believe that he should be forced to wait until the knockout stage.
A statement early today from the club said that "the expert independent medical view is that Wayne has a good chance of being fit after the group stage".
"At that point, the expert independent medical view is that his participation in the tournament will require very careful assessment in order to address his suitability, as he will not have had the opportunity to play in less demanding games," the statement on the United website said.
England sources had been confident that he could play in the third and final group match, against Sweden on June 20, if not against Trinidad & Tobago next Thursday.
United were so concerned about protecting their most precious asset that a second consultant orthopaedic surgeon was summoned to Whalley Range BUPA hospital to give his verdict at a 6pm meeting that also involved doctors from club and country. The gathering went on for almost two hours before Rooney departed for Manchester airport and flew back to England's base in the Black Forest.
The Indie:
'As the TV news helicopters buzzed above Whalley Range, as another meaningless bulletin was broadcast from outside the private hospital in that unloved suburb of Manchester, the mind drifted back to that part of the city's one other footnote in the history of English popular culture. " What do we get for our trouble and pain?" The Smiths sang plaintively in 1984. "Just a rented room in Whalley Range." And even 22 years later it seemed that Morrissey had a point.
At lunchtime yesterday, in a rented treatment room in Whalley Range, Wayne Rooney presented the troublesome metatarsal of his right foot to the specialist and hoped for the best. What a journey it had been to get there. Not many 20-year-olds have to deal with a small broken part of themselves becoming an issue of international importance. A broken toe that ends up the source of a potentially monumental dispute between Sir Alex Ferguson and the Football Association. In short, a whole lot of trouble and pain.
Now that Rooney is back in Germany, one thing stands out above all: the man himself has handled life with dignity and determination as he has had to contemplate the destruction of his World Cup dream. Watching him training alone, away from his England team-mates, on Tuesday, was to know that the country's single most talented footballer is being denied the one thing he covets the most: the right to pull on a football jersey and go out to do damage to the opposition.
Back to Whalley Range and the fix that Rooney found himself in was peculiarly Morrissey-esque. That old story of the struggle of youth, talent and ambition to assert itself in a world that seems doomed to misunderstand him the longing for a place in history, not to mention living out all that teenage angst on a very public stage. But more than ever over the last week we have seen Rooney articulate, in his own way, what it is he wants from life.
The decision on whether he would play or not was supposed to be brokered at the very top end of English football: United executives and FA officials with an element of serious medical opinion thrown in as well. Then on Monday someone chipped an inviting cross within the compass of Rooney and he hit it with the savage relief of a footballer who has spent too long without his boots on.
This was Rooney's plea to play this summer in the most eloquent terms he could muster. In those pictures snatched of him training with England outside Watford on Monday, we saw Rooney interrupt the opinions of the experts, of Eriksson and of Ferguson the way he knows best: by belting a ball into a goal with the foot he broke five weeks earlier.
Torygraph:
The decision had been delayed for an hour after alarms were set off forcing clinic staff to be evacuated.
Rooney originally set off from Karlsruhe airport at 11am yesterday and was later taken straight to the hospital for the scan on the fourth metatarsal in his right foot.
There was a long wait as doctors analysed the findings before Rooney returned to the hosital at 6pm. Although United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, on holiday in France, and Eriksson were not there, both were fully consulted during negotiations between the club's doctor, Tony Gill, and Sward. A third independent consultant, approved by Fifa, was also present. It is not clear whether he was asked to make the final decision. In the end it was a triumph for Eriksson and England as Rooney was cleared to play. Jermain Defoe, who had been on stand-by, will now return to England.