Michael Owen

Michael James Owen (born December 14, 1979 in Chester, Cheshire) is an English football player currently with Newcastle United. He has also played for Liverpool and Real Madrid. He plays as a striker, and is noted particularly for his speed, acceleration and clinical finishing. He has enjoyed a hugely successful and high-profile career at both club and international level and was the European Footballer of the Year in 2001.

Career

Michael Owen was born to Janette and Terry Owen in the Countess of Chester Hospital, Cheshire. He has two older brothers, Andrew and Terry Junior, an older sister, Karen, and a younger sister, Lesley.

Michael's father, Terry, had previously played for Everton F.C., and he can always remember kicking a football with his father and brothers. As an Everton fan, he insisted that he was Gary Lineker whenever the family had a game.

When Michael was only seven, Terry persuaded the manager of Mold Alexandra to let Michael into his team of ten-year-olds. Michael was quite a bit younger than most, and very much smaller, but he was soon showing off his "flair" and started in most games. He also played for his primary school team in Hawarden, Wales, breaking all local scoring records in his first season.

His secondary school was Hawarden High School, where he also played for the school team.

His records and ability attracted much attention from top English teams, but as a Junior School boy, the school had the final say and it was a policy not to allow pupils to sign contracts at such a young age.

Liverpool F.C.

At age 12, he joined the local school, Hawarden High. He could now sign School Boy forms with a club, and had talks with Chelsea F.C., Manchester United F.C. and Arsenal F.C.. He eventually signed for Liverpool, and it was the club who persuaded him to attend the FA's School of Excellence at Lilleshall in Staffordshire from aged 14. Throughout this time, he continued to study at Hawarden High School, and achieved ten GCSEs.

Liverpool signed Owen after he graduated from Lilleshall at 16, and joined the club on the Youth Training Scheme. With Owen's help, Liverpool's youth team won the FA Youth Cup in 1996. After four months, he signed professional forms for the senior team just after his seventeenth birthday in December 1996.

He made his debut for Liverpool against Wimbledon in May 1997, coming on as a substitute and scoring a goal. With an injury to Robbie Fowler, he was thrust immediately into action as a first team regular alongside the likes of newcomer Paul Ince and playmaker Steve McManaman in the following 1997-98 season. Owen ended that season as joint top scorer in the Premier League, scoring eighteen goals (equal with Chris Sutton and Dion Dublin), as well as being voted the PFA Young Player of the Year by his fellow professionals.

In the 1998 World Cup, Michael Owen was the star for England and he became well-known worldwide. His goal against Argentina stunned the world.

He continued to be a consistent goalscorer for Liverpool, and in 2001, helped the club to their most successful season for several years. The team won the League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup, with Owen scoring two goals in the last few minutes against Arsenal in the FA Cup final to turn what appeared to be a 1-0 defeat into a 2-1 victory. Surprisingly, however, he failed to score in the team's incredible 5-4 victory against Deportivo Alavés in the UEFA Cup Final, and was substituted in that game.

Due to winning the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup, Liverpool participated in the Charity Shield and the European Super Cup, to start the 2001-2002 season. Liverpool had won both matches with Owen scoring the second goal of a 2-1 win over Manchester United (Charity Shield) and the third goal in the 3-2 win over european champions Bayern Munich. At the end of the year, he became the first British player for twenty years to win the European Footballer of the Year award.

Due to Liverpool's continued failure to win the Premier League or the Champions League, and his own stated ambition to some day play abroad, Owen was often linked with moves to other clubs. Then he moved to Real Madrid, for a fee of £8 million on 13 August 2004, with midfielder Antonio Nunez moving in the other direction as a make-weight.

The deal suited Liverpool because Owen had only one year remaining on his contract before he could leave on a free transfer (having previously lost Steve McManaman in a similar manner). It also suited Owen who had expressed a desire to play abroad.

Ironically, Liverpool then won the Champions League without Owen, while Real won nothing for the second successive season.

Real Madrid C.F.

Owen had a slow start to his Madrid career and drew some criticism from fans and the Spanish press for his lack of form, often being confined to the substitutes bench during matches. However, a successful return to action with the England team in October 2004 seemed to revive his morale, and on his first match back with Madrid following this he scored his first goal for the team, the winner in a 1-0 UEFA Champions League group game victory over Dynamo Kiev. He quickly followed this up just a few days later with his first Spanish league goal for the team in a 1-0 victory over Valencia, and also hit the target in the three of the next four games to make it five goals in seven successive matches. He ended the season with a highly respectable thirteen goals in La Liga (the season's highest ratio of goals scored to number of minutes played), as Real finished runners-up in the Spanish championship. In August 2005 speculation arose that Owen would soon part company with Real Madrid in order to join one of the English Premier League's more dominant teams and also to secure his position as England's first choice striker, following Real's signing of two high-profile Brazilian forwards .

On August 24 2005, Newcastle United announced that they had agreed a club record fee of £17 million with Madrid for Owen, although they still had to negotiate with the player's advisers. However, Owen claimed that he would only be willing to spend a year on loan to them. This came just a day after Everton, traditional rivals of Owen's beloved Liverpool, had a bid for the player turned down by the Spanish club [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/e/everton/4176576.stm.

Newcastle United F.C.

On August 31 2005 Owen finally signed a four-year contract to play for Newcastle United, despite initial press speculation that he would rather have returned to Liverpool. Roughly 20,000 fans were present at Newcastle's home ground of St James' Park for Owen's official unveiling as a Newcastle player. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/n/newcastle_united/4200808.stm He scored his first goal for the club on his second appearance, the middle goal in a 3-0 away win at Blackburn Rovers on September 18 – Newcastle's first win of the season. Owen scored his first hat-trick for Newcastle in the 4-2away win over West Ham United on December 17. It was also a 'perfect hat trick', (meaning he scored with his left foot, right foot, and head).

He has been very unfortunate in sustaining serious injuries since joining Newcastle. On December 31, 2005, Owen broke a metatarsal bone in his foot in a match against Tottenham Hotspur. He underwent a successful surgery to place a pin in the bone, to help speed the healing process. He was expected to be out of action until late March but the healing process didn't go as hoped and on March 24 he underwent a second, minor, operation. Owen then stated that he should be fit for the final few weeks of the season with Newcastle Birmingham City on April 29 when he came off the substitutes' bench in the 62nd minute. After the match Owen stated that he was "not 100% happy" with his foot [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2006/4874772.stm" target="_blank" >^*. He underwent a further x-ray and made himself unavailable for Newcastle's final game of the season.

A damaged anterior ligament in his right knee, sustained in the second minute of the group match against Sweden at the 2006 World Cup, is likely to keep Owen out of regular football for up to a year. Owen's injury has fanned the "club or country" dispute between clubs and the international authorities, as the Football Association's insurance policy will not fully reimburse Newcastle United for Owens' salary of over £100,000 a week, or the costs of employing another player to cover for him; Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd has threatened to sue the FA for compensation.

International career

Owen had a highly successful record at Youth and Under-21 international level, although he was only briefly a member of the England Under-21 team before he made his debut for the senior team in a 2-0 friendly loss to Chile in February 1998. Playing in this game made Owen the youngest player to represent England in the whole of the 20th century.

Owen's youthful enthusiasm, pace and talent made him a popular player across the country, and many fans were keen for him to be made a regular player for the team ahead of that year's World Cup. His first goal for England, against Morocco in another friendly game just prior to this tournament, only increased these calls. The goal also made him the youngest ever player to have scored for England, until his record was surpassed by Wayne Rooney in 2003.

Although he was selected for the World Cup squad by manager Glenn Hoddle, he was kept on the bench as a substitute in the first two games. However, his substitute appearance in the second game against Romania saw him score a goal and hit the post with another shot, almost salvaging the defeat. After that, Hoddle had little choice but to play him from the start, and in England's second round match against Argentina he scored a sensational individual goal, voted by many as the goal of the tournament and really bringing him to the attention of the world football scene.

England drew that match and went out of the tournament on penalties, but Owen had sealed his place as an automatic England choice and his popularity in the country was huge. At the end of the year he won a public vote to be elected winner of the prestigious BBC Sports Personality of the Year title, the award's youngest ever recipient.

He has since played for England in Euro 2000, the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004, scoring goals in all three tournaments. This makes him the only player to ever have scored in four major tournaments for England. He also became one of only a handful of England players to appear in three World Cup tournaments when he played at the 2006 FIFA World Cup, although he did not score and was injured in the final group game. Owen's record at major tournament finals is just 5 goals in 19 appearances.

In April 2002, he was named as England's captain for a friendly match against Paraguay in place of the injured regular captain David Beckham. Owen was the youngest England skipper since Bobby Moore in 1963, and since then has regularly captained England during any absence for Beckham.

Owen made his debut for the England national B-team in a friendly against Belarus on May 25 2006, as part of his return to match fitness ahead of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. He captained England B in this game, playing for 61 minutes before being substituted.

As of June 20 2006, Owen has been capped 80 times for England and scored 36 goals: he is fourth in the list of all-time top scorers for the England team, behind Bobby Charlton (49 goals), Gary Lineker (48) and Jimmy Greaves (44). He and Lineker jointly hold the record of twenty-two goals for England in competitive matches, i.e. World Cup and European Championship games and the qualifiers for those tournaments.

After playing only 74 seconds of his 80th cap in the 2006 World Cup against Sweden, Owen suffered a knee injury and was forced to leave the match; Peter Crouch came on as his replacement. A scan of the injury on 21 June showed that he injured the anterior cruciate ligament of his knee, and was sent home, no longer able to play in the tournament, and expected to be out of action for at least five months. ^*

Private life

Owen married his childhood sweetheart, Louise Bonsall, in June 2005; two years after the birth of their daughter, Gemma Rose (born 14 April 2003). Their son, James Michael Owen, was born on 6 February 2006. Michael and Louise had been engaged since Valentine's Day 2004, and had known each other since starting primary school in 1984.

The couple had initially planned to get married at their home, Lower Soughton Hall (near Northop and Soughton), but changed plans when they were informed that if a licence was granted for a marriage ceremony the venue must be made available for other weddings for three years.

Trivia

Sponsored by Jaguar Cars. He once had an XK sports car, but after advice from his physio on his troublesome hamstrings, changed to an XJ saloon.
Owen is mentioned in the song "England 5 Germany 1" by The Business

Statistics

**Club Performance**
Club	Season	League		FA Cup		League Cup		Europe		Others		Total
Club	Season	App	Goals	App	Goals	App	Goals	App	Goals	App	Goals	App	Goals
Newcastle United	2005–06	11	7									11	7
Real Madrid	2004–05	36	13	4	2	-	-	5	1			45	16
Liverpool FC	2004–05												0
	2003–04	29	16	3	1			6	2			38	19
	2002–03	35	19	2		4	2	12	7	1		54	28
	2001–02	29	19	2	2			11	6	1	1	43	28
	2000–01	28	16	5	3	2	1	11	4			46	24
	1999–00	27	11	1		2	1					30	12
	1998–99	30	18	2	2	2	1	6	2			40	23
	1997–98	36	18			4	4	4	1			44	23
	1996–97	2	1									2	1
Total		263	138	19	10	14	9	55	23	2	1	353	181