Goodbye, Michael Owen: a tribute to a true legend of English football

Back in March this year, 33-year-old Stoke City striker Michael Owen announced that he would retire from professional football at the end of the 2012/13 season. And despite his recent lack of first-team action, he must and will be remembered as a legendary member of some of the greatest clubs in the world, as well as the England national side; regardless of one’s club preference, no one can deny Michael’s unrivalled talent, hunger, and desire to perform.

A young talent, a legend in the making

Owen is best remembered by the majority of us for his time with Liverpool in the 1990s and early 2000s. The Chester-born striker joined the Merseyside club’s academy in 1991, signing a professional contract with Roy Evans’s side at the ripe of old age of 17 in 1996. As you’d expect from someone with such hype, the young striker scored on his debut for the club in the fateful penultimate game of the 1996/97 season against Wimbledon which saw Liverpool give up the Premier League title to Manchester United.

The fire was lit, and Owen quickly became one of the most talked-about players in the English top flight, topping Liverpool’s scoring charts the following season with 23 in all competitions.

After playing professional football with the Merseyside Reds for eight years, Michael Owen left his boyhood club in 2004. He ended his time at Anfield with over 150 goals in just shy of 300 appearances, helping the club win an FA Cup, two League Cups, a Community Shield, a UEFA Cup, and a UEFA Super Cup in the process. Where he had been most important for everyone outside of Liverpool, though, was with his national team.

Owen made his senior England debut in 1998 as the youngest player of the century, just two months after his 18th birthday. Glenn Hoddle took a risk and selected Owen for that year’s World Cup squad in France, although didn’t immediately play the young striker. He first made his impact in the second game of the tournament, when he came on as a substitute against Romania, scored England’s consolation goal, and almost equalised near the end.

On top of the world

The best was yet to come though, as England faced bitter rivals Argentina in the second round of the World Cup on June 30th. The first half of the match housed all the action, with Argentina taking the advantage early when Gabriel Batistuta converted a penalty in the sixth minute after being brought down by David Seaman. Alan Shearer quickly showed off his skills from 12 yards too, equalising for the Three Lions all of four minutes later. It was veteran Shearer’s young strike partner who stole the show on 16 minutes though, picking up the ball in the centre circle and standing strong to power past two Argentine defenders with his incredible pace before cooly slotting the ball into the top corner to put England in front. Now enshrined in history as one of the greatest in England history, the goal led commentator Martin Tyler to proclaim excitedly that Owen had “electrified the world”.

And electrified it he had. After having already won the Premier League Golden Boot, the Premier League Player of the Season, and the PFA Young Player of the Season awards, Owen was named FIFA World Cup Best Young Player despite England having exited the tournament three hurdles before the final. At the end of the year the Liverpool striker was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year, becoming the first footballer since Paul Gascoigne in 1990 to receive the coveted accolade.

Owen’s best season was still to come, and in 2001 he finally made sure to silence anyone still unconvinced of his incredible skill and talent on the big stage. That season Liverpool won an unconvential treble of the FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup, with their star striker instrumental in all three campaigns (along with the almost equally on-form Robbie Fowler and Emile Heskey).

Long story short, Michael Owen won the biggest individual award in world football, the Ballon d’Or. Fighting off competition from Raúl and Oliver Kahn, Owen became the first English player to win the award since Kevin Keegan in 1979, and the first from an English club since George Best in 1968.

Changes afoot: the transition

After continually leading the goal tallies for Liverpool, Owen moved to Spanish giants Real Madrid in August 2004 for £8 million. Following injury complaints and a short lack of form, the Englishman soon found his feet and began scoring important goals for the La Liga side here and there. In his only season with the club, he scored a total of 16 goals in 45 appearances, half of which were made from the bench. He quickly moved back to England, joining Premier League mid-tablers Newcastle United in August 2005 for a club record fee of £16.8 million, amongst competition from former club Liverpool and Merseyside rivals Everton.

The start of his Newcastle career was not exactly what he had hoped for, as a thigh injury suffered in pre-season left him out for the first month of the campaign, although he quickly came back and showed that he still had it when he scored a perfect hat-trick against West Ham United before Christmas.

The game started to take its toll on Michael though, and on the final day of 2005, in a match against Tottenham Hotspur, the 26-year-old suffered a broken metatarsal which left him out of action for a full four months. A second operation was needed though, and Owen made just one more appearance that season before resting up in preparation for the upcoming 2006 World Cup in Germany.

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