Rooney's first night at Old Trafford

Wayne Rooney arrived at Manchester United with a fee of more than £20 million, a broken foot and a great deal of expectation. He had broken the foot at Euro 2004, and it kept him out for three months. United signed him from Everton anyway. His first game for them was at home to Fenerbahçe in the Champions League group stage.

Three goals in 37 minutes

He scored after 17 minutes. Ruud van Nistelrooy did the work, and Rooney hit the shot from just outside the area.

Eleven minutes later he had a second. He took the ball towards the edge of the box, sidestepped the Fenerbahçe captain, Ümit Özat, and shot. It was a goal about balance and timing more than power.

The third came nine minutes into the second half, from a free-kick. It completed a hat-trick on his debut. Bobby Charlton had scored twice on his United debut, also aged 18, in 1956. Rooney had gone one better.

Late in the game he set up a goal for David Bellion. United won 6–2.

Ferguson's caution

Sir Alex Ferguson had seen enough young players to know what the next morning's newspapers would do. He did not add to it. "He is only 18 and a young boy, don't forget," he said. "He obviously tired in the last 20 minutes but, given that it was his first game since the European Championship, you could expect that."

It was a manager trying to take some of the weight off a teenager who had just scored three times in the Champions League, on his first night, at a club that had paid a fortune for him.

What came after

He stayed at United for 13 years and left in 2017 as the club's record goalscorer, with 253 goals. Plenty of those were better goals than the three he scored against Fenerbahçe, and some came in bigger games. None of them had the same effect. On 28 September 2004 he showed, within 17 minutes, that the fee and the fuss had been about a real footballer.