Michael Owen

Michael James Owen is a England international football player who currently features for the English Premier League club Manchester United. He is renowned as one of the best strikers ever to play the game and won the Ballon d’Or in 2001 and also won the UEFA Cup and the FA Cup with Liverpool that year.

Owen’s father Terry himself was a footballer and had played for Everton and so Owen grew up as an Everton supporter. However, he is a graduate of the famed Liverpool academy and made his debut for Merseysiders in the English Premier League in 1996 and played for the Reds until the end of the 2003-2004 season.

He had a phenomenal record at Liverpool as he scored 118 goals in 216 Premier League matches and won the League Cup, the FA Cup, the UEFA Cup, the European Cup and the Charity Shield with the Reds all in 2001 and also won the League Cup again in 2003. Since 1998 Owen was the top scorer for Liverpool every season until he left the club.

Real Madrid signed the forward in the summer of 2004 for 8 million pounds but Owen could manage to stay for just one season at the Bernabeu and was never a regular for them. Yet he scored 13 league goals in 36 matches - most of them he played as a substitute - and was signed by Newcastle in 2005 for a club record fee of 16 million pounds.

But Owen suffered from injuries during his time at St. James’ Park but surprising joined Manchester United in 2009. Since then, though, he has had a terrible run of injuries with his knee and groin giving him tremendous trouble.

Owen made his international debut for England in 1998 and has played 89 matches for his nation so far, scoring 40 goals. He featured for his nation at the 1998 World Cup, Euro 2000, 2002 World Cup, Euro 2004 and the 2006 Germany World Cup. He scored one of the best goals ever against Argentina in the last 16 tie in France ’98.