Wayne Rooney will make his 100th England appearance on Saturday when Roy Hodgson’s side attempt to extend their 100 per cent record in Euro 2016 qualifying at home to Slovenia.
The Manchester United striker, 29, will lead the team out at Wembley Stadium accompanied by his two young sons, Kai and Klay, as he becomes the ninth England player to take his number of caps into three figures.
Rooney is on course to break former goalkeeper Peter Shilton’s 125-cap appearance record and is also only six goals short of Bobby Charlton’s England scoring record of 49 goals.
But having failed to shine for England at a major tournament since making his breakthrough at Euro 2004, he accepts he still has to prove himself worthy of comparison with World Cup winners such as Charlton.
“To get 100 caps for England, there’s not many players who have done it,” Rooney writes in the programme for Saturday’s match.
“It would be a great achievement. I’ll be proud to join that club and it is something that myself and my family would be honoured by. But I could sit here saying I’ve got 200 caps and 100 goals for my country, but the ultimate is to win a trophy and that’s what we all want to do.”
“That’s why we play football, to win. That’s the target and hopefully sometime soon we can achieve that.”
He adds: “Obviously I’m not going to be as big a legend as Sir Bobby Charlton – he’s won the World Cup with England — so to eclipse that I’d have to win the World Cup, which would be a massive achievement.”
