Wayne Rooney publicly celebrated his eldest son Kai after the teenager made his first appearance at Old Trafford for Manchester United\u2019s Under-18s. The cup tie ended 2\u20131 as United progressed to the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
United opened the scoring via an own goal before Chido Obi, one of the \u201centitled\u201d youngsters who inspired such ire from Ruben Amorim, doubled the lead. A late consolation from the visitors ensured a tense finale, but the home side held on. The match drew 2,223 in attendance, including Wayne Rooney, his wife Coleen and Manchester United\u2019s senior head coach Michael Carrick.<\/p>\n
Kai came off the bench in what was his third outing for the U18s. Fletcher, Rooney\u2019s former teammate who remains a close family friend, handed him his debut at this level back in August when he was only 15. On the younger Rooney\u2019s second outing for United \u2019s U18s he scored the last goal in a 5\u20130 rout of Middlesbrough.<\/p>\n
The appearance was notable because it followed a difficult period. Kai suffered a serious injury that left his right foot in a protective boot and required crutches. Friday\u2019s cup clash marked his first match since a gruelling five-month layoff.<\/p>\n
After the game Rooney Sr posted two images on X, juxtaposing Kai in the current U18 fixture with a photo from almost a decade earlier when he walked out on the Old Trafford turf during his own playing days. \u201cThen and now,\u201d he wrote. \u201cProud of you Kai.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rooney has been careful about expectations. \u201cHe has great coaches at Manchester United, so I take a stand-off approach,\u201d Rooney Sr told BBC News NI back in July. \u201cI speak to him, but for me it\u2019s all about his mentality and his mindset, to make sure he keeps enjoying it\u2014that\u2019s the main thing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The elder Rooney\u2019s limited public guidance has mostly concerned preparation away from the direct oversight of United\u2019s staff, leaving day-to-day development to the club\u2019s coaching structure while offering support at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wayne Rooney shared pride as son Kai made his Old Trafford U18 debut after a five-month injury layoff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1264,179],"tags":[1305,1304,1012],"class_list":["post-6198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-development","category-manchester-united","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching","tag-burnley-style"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}