Wayne Rooney mengaku bahwa karirnya bersama timnas Inggris akan "sia-sia" kecuali ia berhasil memenangkan Piala Dunia.

Rooney yang memiliki 82 caps bersama Three Lions, disebut-sebut sebagai salah satu pemain terbaik yang pernah bermain di timnas Inggris. Namun, penyerang Manchester United ini mengaku semua gelar pribadi tak akan ada apa-apanya bila gagal meraih trofi Piala Dunia.

"Aku bisa mengakhiri karir bersama Inggris dengan menjadi pencetak gol terbanyak dan mungkin juga pemegang caps terbanyak, tetapi jika tidak berhasil (memenangkan piala), maka itu sia-sia," ujarnya.

"Saya ingin medali sebagai pemenang Piala Dunia," tegasnya.

Penyerang berusia 27 tahun ini membidik putaran final Piala Dunia 2014 sebagai kesempatan untuk mewujudkan impiannya tersebut. Selain itu, mantan pemain Everton ini juga berpeluang menjadi top skor sepanjang masa Inggris. Kini, Rooney berada di posisi ke enam dengan koleksi 35 gol. Terpaut 14 gol dari Bobby Charlton yang berada di puncak. (met/dzi)

BEIJING (AP) — The head of Taiwan's Nationalists reaffirmed the party's support for eventual unification with the mainland when he met Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of continuing rapprochement between the former bitter enemies.

Nationalist Party Chairman Eric Chu, a likely presidential candidate next year, also affirmed Taiwan's desire to join the proposed Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank during the meeting in Beijing. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and doesn't want the island to join using a name that might imply it is an independent country.

Chu's comments during his meeting with Xi were carried live on Hong Kong-based broadcaster Phoenix Television.

The Nationalists were driven to Taiwan by Mao Zedong's Communists during the Chinese civil war in 1949, leading to decades of hostility between the sides. Chu, who took over as party leader in January, is the third Nationalist chairman to visit the mainland and the first since 2009.

Relations between the communist-ruled mainland and the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan began to warm in the 1990s, partly out of their common opposition to Taiwan's formal independence from China, a position advocated by the island's Democratic Progressive Party.

Despite increasingly close economic ties, the prospect of political unification has grown increasingly unpopular on Taiwan, especially with younger voters. Opposition to the Nationalists' pro-China policies was seen as a driver behind heavy local electoral defeats for the party last year that led to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou resigning as party chairman.