Wayne Rooney rowed down a river on Saturday morning after honouring a lost bet at the World Cup.
Rooney had vowed to row down the River Mersey if Norway beat Brazil in the World Cup round of 16 — a cheeky quip about the ‘Viking Row’ which Erling Haaland and co. have made famous this summer.
Norway caused an upset by eliminating the five-time World Cup winners and Rooney promised to uphold his end of the bargain, albeit in the U.S. where he is a TV pundit for the tournament.
“Wayne, I expect you to go out on a rowing trip,” Haaland teased after scoring twice against Brazil.
Joined by fellow former England internationals Joe Hart and Micah Richards, Rooney grabbed a pair of oars and hopped into a rowing boat on the Hudson River in New York on Saturday.
“Erling, as promised, here we are doing our row down the Hudson River,” Rooney said to the BBC as the boat was prepared.
Rooney also joked as the trio rowed: “I think I’ve pulled my thigh!”
Hart joked: “We should race the Norwegian team.”
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Rooney added: “I loved it. The fans were brilliant. So we’ve done it out of respect for the fans.”
Rooney had the last word by replying to Haaland: “I hope you enjoyed it. I have seen a video of you dancing in Marbella… enjoy it.”
England, who eliminated Norway in the quarterfinals, will play France on Saturday night in the third-place playoff in Miami before Argentina and Spain contest the final on Sunday in New Jersey.
Rooney had previously criticised Thomas Tuchel for his role in England’s elimination against Argentina in the semifinal.
“If you’re an attacking player on that pitch and you go 1-0 up and you see the changes which the manager’s making, you’re losing belief, there’s only so many times you can get away with it,” he said.
“Then you start thinking, oh no we’re going to sit back for this long, how are we going to get through this?
“It’s a panic, it’s a real panic. You can’t go a goal up and then surrender the strength of the ball and surrender any opportunity going to try and get the second goal because that’s what you want to do.
“If you let players of that quality have the ball around your penalty box, sooner or later they’re going to score.”
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Tuchel’s changes were branded a “coaching catastrophe” by former Blackburn and Celtic striker Chris Sutton.
Sutton said on BBC Five Live: “It was a coaching catastrophe from Thomas Tuchel. The fact that England get themselves in front and then basically hand Argentina the initiative, defending deep, another defender on.
“It’s quite a simple game football, you have to get up the pitch. You can’t expect to defend for 30 minutes against the quality Argentina have and keep giving the ball back to them, that’s what England did and it’s all on the coach as far as I’m concerned.
“He made the changes, he was negative. So the question which I’m going to ask is, how can you trust Thomas Tuchel to take this England team forward?
“I don’t care what anybody says, England have had a generous run in this competition, England haven’t played well in one 90 minutes in the World Cup.”
Press Association contributed to this story.
