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After 96 days out with a broken foot, $45 million teenager Wayne Rooney made his debut for Machester United on Tuesday in a Champions League match in Manchester against Fenerbache, last year’s Turkish champions.

Usually, when a player is coming back from a long injury, they get a few minutes at the end of the game to build up their fitness. But Rooney started, and marked his debut with a hat-trick within the first hour. It was the first hat-trick of his career, and, for some perspective, his striking partner Ruud Van Nistlerooy, who has a record 31 goals in the competition for United, has never scored a hat-trick in European competition.

For the last few years RVN has been the only reliable source of goals for United, and he’s an in-the-box type player who excels at pouncing on loose balls close to the goal with deadly accuracy. Rooney, on the other hand, is quite versatile and will definitely add a new dimension to United’s attacking play.

His first goal of the game came as he ran on to a brilliant flick pass from RVN and blasted the ball high into the back of the net past the keeper. Pretty typical striker play, but still impressive. His second goal reminded me of the way Eric Cantona could make a goal out of nothing. Rooney collected the ball outside the box, made a little feint with his upper body to throw a defender off his mark, and then, when it looked like Rooney had let the ball run too far wide to get out a shot, drilled a low 20-yard drive across the penalty area, under the keeper’s dive and into the far corner. Brilliant stuff. For his third, Rooney audaciously claimed the right to take a 20-yard free-kick and “bent it like Beckham,” as they say, over the wall into the net. United 6, Fener 2 (goals also from Giggs, RVN, and David Bellion, who otherwise played like a tool).

While United still have defensive problems, with Rio Ferdinand back to restore confidence that should improve. And the most exciting non-event of the game was that the amazing teenager C.Ronaldo, who has been incredible the last few games, was given a rest. When he and Rooney are out there together, it should be a spectacle of creative attacking football. Good for us.

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