Just as his father did, Manchester United academy star Kai Rooney has been racking up goals at youth level – here’s how his stats stack up against Wayne’s
Trying to step out of Wayne Rooney’s shadow may be one of the toughest tasks ever handed to a young footballer – but Kai Rooney is ready to embrace the challenge.
The 16-year-old Manchester United academy prospect is aiming to follow in his father’s footsteps and break into the first team at Old Trafford. Matching Wayne’s remarkable achievements – he bagged 253 goals to become United’s all-time leading goalscorer – might seem a daunting prospect but Kai has already shown promising signs as he steadily climbs the ranks within United’s youth system.
In fact, if his early academy statistics are anything to go by, the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. During the 2021/22 season, playing for Man United’s Under-12s, Kai recorded truly astonishing numbers.
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The youngster racked up an incredible 56 goals and provided 28 assists in a single campaign. To put that into perspective, he was directly involved in 84 goals over the course of the season, a phenomenal return that instantly drew comparisons to his father’s legendary scoring prowess.
He has continued to prove his lethal touch in front of goal while rising up the ranks. Earlier this month, he bagged four goals for United’s U16 side and his strong form has seen him play a handful of times for the U18s, where he is one of the youngest in the age group.
In four appearances at U18 level this term – all as a substitute – Kai has still found the net once despite limited time on the pitch. With just over an hour of action under his belt across those games, that’s a respectable return and a promising sign of his instincts in front of goal.
But how does Kai’s prolific youth record stack up against Wayne’s legendary boyhood exploits on Merseyside? The truth is, Wayne’s youth record reads like a video game.
Long before he was terrorising Premier League defences, he was rewriting the record books in local youth football. Playing for Liverpool Schoolboys, a young Wayne once scored 72 goals in a single season – a record that stood for nearly two decades.
At just nine years old, playing for Copplehouse boys’ club in the Walton and Kirkdale junior league, he netted an absurd 99 goals in the 1994/95 season. It was this relentless, unstoppable form that caught the eye of Everton scout Bob Pendleton, who snapped him up for the Toffees, changing the course of English football history.
Once he joined Everton’s academy, the floodgates stayed open. During the 1995/96 season, playing for the club’s U10s and U11s, Wayne scored a staggering 114 goals in just 29 games – averaging nearly four goals a game.
His physical and technical development was so rapid that by the age of 15, he had already been fast-tracked to Everton’s U19s squad.
During Everton’s run to the 2002 FA Youth Cup Final, a 16-year-old Wayne scored eight goals in eight games. Though Everton ultimately suffered a final defeat against Aston Villa, Wayne left his mark by scoring a goal and famously revealing a T-shirt that read, “Once a Blue, always a Blue.”
Within months, Wayne was included in Everton’s first-team squad for a summer training camp in Austria and scored his first senior goal in a 3-1 friendly victory over SC Weiz on July 15, 2002. A few months later, he announced himself to the world by netting a long-range wondergoal against Arsenal, becoming the youngest goalscorer in the competition’s history at the time. The rest is history.
While matching the sheer output of Wayne 114-goal seasons may be an impossible benchmark for any mortal striker, Kai Rooney is already showing he has inherited the family’s ruthless edge in front of goal.
Wayne was a generational talent who physically overpowered opponents well beyond his years, famously making his Premier League debut at just 16 – the age Kai is now. While the younger Rooney’s rise has been less explosive, he is quietly crafting an impressive resumé of his own at Carrington, steadily developing his game and carving out a path that, while different, is no less promising.
If Kai can continue to produce the goods in front of goal against elite academy opposition, the Rooney name might be lighting up the Old Trafford scoreboard for years to come.
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