Michael Owen is a household name in English football. Maybe even the world.
Surprisingly his career hasn’t seen him win many football trophies, but his image and the Owen brand has managed to shift thousands of pounds worth of football accessories. There was hardly a Liverpudlian in the country who didn’t pretend to be him when they pulled on their cheap football kits in the Sunday League.
When in his prime very aspiring footballer had his darting runs and phenomenal ability in mind when they were on the pitch, be it the youngsters in their Prostar football kits on a Sunday afternoon or the near-professionals with their expensive adidas teamwear and top market nike tracksuits.
Owen began his career as a youngster himself in 1991 at Liverpool and made his senior debut for the Reds against Wimbledon, where he scored in their 2-1 defeat.
He has always been an excellent goalscorer, even finding the football nets more times than Ian Rush whilst playing for Deesdale Primary School, scoring 97 goals and beating Rush by 25 goals.
As part of a class that has since provided footballers like Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand he has represented his country 89 times since his International debut in 1998 and in this time he has acquired a couple of prestigious records.
He became England’s youngest player when he made his debut against Chile at only 18 years old. He then went a step further and became the youngest player to score for England whilst playing in a game against Morocco. This record stood until Wayne Rooney beat it in 2003.
He wore the captain’s armband once to replace the injured David Beckham, and in doing so also became the youngest player to captain the country.
After all these ‘youngest player to’ awards his estimation went through the roof, especially after that goal against Argentina, which is still on of the best football goals of all time and regularly features on ‘greatest goals’ lists.
After eight years, 216 appearance and 118 goals for Liverpool, Owen left the Premier League for the dangling carrot overseas and signed a contract with one of football’s most well-known clubs, Real Madrid.
Newcastle United snared the hot property for a record £16.8million in 2005, but he was not going to find the same form as he did when last in the Premier League and he only managed to find the net 26 times in four years on the roster.
This caused them to release him in 2009 to fill the pretty big football socks left by Cristiano Ronaldo when signing for Manchester United in 2009, but his goal to appearance ratio reduced further when he only scored five goals in 31 appearances.
At the end of last season Owen was released by United on a free transfer and is currently waiting for another Premier League club to approach him with a contract. He has tweeted saying he is not willing to drop down to the Championship as he firmly believes he can still knock the goals in at top level – so with such a fantastic career behind him, could it be time to hang up the football socks?
