Sixth on the all-time England top scorers list. One of just ten players to score 150 Premier League goals. A Ballon d’Or winner. A clean sweep of English top flight silverware and a UEFA Cup to boot. 482 club career appearances in which he netted 222 goals. A further 40 goals across 89 internationals, including goals at four major tournaments. By any measure, this is a legendary football career.
Yet the owner of these accolades, Michael Owen, is seldom considered a legend. He is sometimes branded as one for brevity’s sake, in the same way the three-appearance outcasts are when making up the numbers in a charity “legends” match. But if Owen is a legend, he is one without a home. Can one really be a legend when no club you played for is willing to afford you legendary status?
I’m here to argue that you can. That Owen’s list of accomplishments more than justifies his place in the English footballing pantheon. That even that list of achievements doesn’t begin to describe the cultural impact Owen had during his brief, glittering prime. No club is willing to claim Owen, but he is a legend nonetheless.
So why will no club nail their colours to the Michael mast? Owen’s record at Liverpool certainly outstrips some who wear the “legend” tag at Anfield. He sits level with Kenny Dalglish in the scoring charts. Modern greats like Luis Suarez and Mohamed Salah are below him on that list. His 2000/01 super-season netted him a Ballon d’Or and his club three trophies. His brace in the 2001 FA Cup final was part of perhaps the greatest one-man show in that competition since ‘The Matthews Final’ in 1953.
Bursting onto the first team scene on Merseyside after firing his team to an FA Youth Cup win, Owen made an instant impact. Scoring 18 goals in each of his first two full seasons while still a teenager, Owen was an instant sensation. Like The Beatles before him, his fame extended far beyond Liverpool.
Owen was unavoidable. His face adorned posters and cereal packets. Nary an advert break passed by without Liverpool’s young superstar being used to sell you something. He even starred in his own CBBC show, ‘Hero To Zero’, in which the main character received football and life advice from the striker.
Owen was an overnight sensation, but he was a grounded one. Arriving just after the era of David Beckham’s catwalk trappings, Eric Cantona’s cod mysticism and the Spice Boys’ cream suits, Owen was the footballing icon you could take home to meet your nan. George Best used to sleep in a bed full of supermodels. Owen was more likely to curl up with a good book and a Horlicks.
Perhaps that PG-rated persona harmed his perception in the long run. Diego Maradona, Paul Gascoigne and Best were flawed geniuses. Owen was an advertising executive's idea of a footballer. He was so safe he made Roy of the Rovers look like Reggie Kray.
But on the pitch he could do everything his spikier forebears had done. To the point of near-plagiarism, in fact. In 1998, against the very same Argentina team Maradona once ignited, Owen scored a reenactment of El Diez’s 1986 slalom against England. The Three Lions lost the game, but that goal has lived on eternally ever since as a piece of World Cup history.
It was during his Liverpool stay that Owen’s hamstring troubles started. An Injury picked up against Leeds United would end up gnawing at his once-blistering pace for the rest of his career. But the decline was gradual. The Ballon d’Or and the triple-helping of trophies in 2001 would come post-injury. But the damage was done and it was damage Owen would never fully recover from.
In 2004, Owen was sold to Real Madrid. Beckham had kicked off a trend when moving to the Bernabeu the season before. Luka Modric, Gareth Bale, Eden Hazard and others would follow as the Premier League’s best players began viewing Real Madrid as the ultimate destination. But the practice was still young when Owen went. He also moved at a time when Los Blancos were ill-equipped to accommodate him.
Owen featured mainly from the bench during his sole season in Spain. With Raul and Ronaldo ahead of him in the pecking order, the Chester-born striker was limited to cameos. He generally made the most of them, netting 13 goals in 36 league games. But it was clearly a bad fit for the once-dominant Owen. A Premier League return was the best course of action for all involved.
The fact it was the black and white of Newcastle United, rather than the familiar Anfield red, that Owen wore the following season surprised many. The player himself later admitted he would have preferred to return to Liverpool, but the club had not matched Real’s valuation with their bid. So instead Owen headed to St James’ Park for a club-record £16.8 million fee.
It was in the North East that the fall of Owen really took shape. A broken metatarsal halfway through his first season would eradicate much of his remaining pace. Two surgeries later and he was back in time for the 2006 World Cup. While there, he damaged his ACL in a group game against Sweden. The injury would keep him out for a year.
The rest of Owen’s time on Tyneside was blighted by injury, a falling-out with owner Freddy Shepherd and a growing enmity from fans sick of seeing him on the sidelines. Over the course of four seasons Owen played just 79 games for the Magpies, scoring 30 goals.
A lifeline arrived from an unexpected source. Despite Liverpool once again being mentioned as a potential destination, Owen signed a two-year, pay-as-you play deal with Manchester United. Before putting pen to paper, Owen was still considered a Liverpool legend. Once he had reached the “n” in his name, his Anfield reputation lay in tatters. The majority of fans would never forgive him for what they see as the ultimate betrayal.
Owen’s tenure at United was better than remembered, but he was far from the player of old. Injuries limited him to just 52 appearances and 17 goals in all competitions over the course of three years. But there were memorable moments. An injury-time winner in a 4-3 derby win over Manchester City ensured he’ll never be entirely forgotten at Old Trafford. A hat-trick against Wolfsburg in the Champions League was a nostalgic reminder of the brilliance he once wielded regularly. But nothing he did for the Red Devils ever saw him cross into the pantheon of legend. For all the fuss being made about it on Merseyside, Owen’s United tenure plays more like a curiosity than a betrayal.
Eight games and a single goal for Stoke City followed. The strike, a consolation against Swansea City, saw Owen celebrate wildly. On the face of it this was an odd time and place to go so wild. But the goal was Owen’s 150th in the Premier League. He became the seventh man in history to reach that marker. Even with his legs betraying him, shorn of the legendary status he once enjoyed, Owen was capable of moments of history.
But history hasn’t remembered Owen the way he deserved. In the social media age he has become more meme than man. His punditry quirk in which he states the obvious in a dry monotone has been the subject of mockery. There’s the unintentionally hilarious video of him acting as a helicopter tour guide. Perhaps greatest of all is the video of him scoring past a child goalkeeper and being scolded for his celebration by Neville Southall. 'Well done he’s 13” has lived longer than the vast majority of Owen’s finest moments.
Michael Owen has had a Hall of Fame-worthy career, but he has no one to share it with. Liverpool fans have turned on him. Real Madrid fans barely remember him. Newcastle United fans wish they could forget him. Manchester United and Stoke City fans have forgotten him. His England achievements were superb, but overshadowed by Wayne Rooney and Harry Kane in the intervening years.
So it falls to The Sportsman to find a place in its heart for Owen. You can join us too, if you like. Forget the man’s punditry, forget the memes. Remember the spring-heeled teenager that briefly ruled the world.
The burst of pace, the instinctual finish. The Maradona-topper in France. The way he helped Liverpool find their identity again. The way he capped off the greatest Manchester derby ever staged. Michael Owen up to this point has been nobody’s legend. But now he’s ours. If you love football at its most joyous, exciting and spectacular, he should be yours too.
*18+ | BeGambleAware | Odds Subject To Change
