Michael Owen has announced his decision to retire from football at the end of the current season. The former Liverpool, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Newcastle United and current Stoke City striker released a statement on his website this morning, saying:
"It is with an immense amount of pride that I am announcing my intention to retire from Professional Football at the end of this season."
Owen played 89 times for England, scoring 40 goals, while he hit the net a total of 220 times for his club teams.
Owen was a young striker of such prodigious ability that he was being spoken of in excited tones around Anfield long before he made his Liverpool debut (in which he scored against Wimbledon in the penultimate game of the 1996/97 season), at the age of 17. His record goal tallies at schools and youth level had long alerted Liverpool fans to the potential of a young striker who looked set to rewrite the history books at the club.
Sadly, however, he would never fully exploit that potential, as regular injuries and an ill-advised move to Newcastle United hampered his career. It could be argued that his year at Real Madrid was his last at the very top level, or perhaps even his final season with Liverpool when he was just 25 years old.
Owen has smashed Ian Rush’s schools goalscoring record before joining the Anfield club, and once in the first team he quickly deposed Robbie Fowler as the side’s main striker.
Owen signed a professional contract with Liverpool on his seventeenth birthday and was soon brought into the first team squad, under manager Roy Evans. He won the Premier League Golden Boot award in both of his first two seasons, 1997/98 and 98/99. He was the youngest ever England international on his debut under Glenn Hoddle in 1998. In the same year he would go on to be named FA Young Player of the Year and The BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
Between these two achievements of domestic excellence he had what will most likely remain the most enduring memory of his career, on the international stage. In the 1998 World Cup second round game, against Argentina, Owen scored a goal that became an instant World Cup classic. The then 18 year old took possession at the halfway line, before running at top speed through the Argentine defence and finishing expertly. It was the goal that announced Owen to the world.
At the end of the following season Owen would face the first major injury setback of his career, a trend that would continue. An injured hamstring, a regular injury for the striker over the course of his career, at the end of the 98/99 season saw him miss almost six months of action.
In 2001 Owen was named the European Footballer of the year, the first English player to win the award since Kevin Keegan won it in 1979. At the time he was considered by many as the finest striker in Europe, and seen as a central cog in Liverpool’s ambitions of a Premier League title. His hat-trick against Germany in England's 5-1 victory during qualifying for the 2002 World Cup further enhanced his global reputation.
Goals in domestic cup finals and major international tournaments (Owen is the only English player to score in 4 major tournaments) confirmed his reputation as a cold blooded finisher, with the mentality to thrive in the biggest games and Liverpool had long faced a battle to ward off Europe’s biggest clubs from enticing their prize asset away from Anfield.
The arrival of Wayne Rooney, a striking prodigy with possibly more hype aurrounding him than even Owen had experienced, pushed Owen aside as England's most important striker. The Liverpool man's Euro 2004 was overshadowed by an intense focus on the young Everton player.
Owen left Liverpool in the summer of 2004, joining Real Madrid for a fee of £8 million. His time in Madrid was characterised by time on the bench and criticism for poor form. However, despite the criticism aimed at him from Real Madrid fans and the Spanish press, he finished the season with 13 La Liga goals and the highest goals to game time ratio in the league. His tally included a goal against Barcelona in El Clasico.
His time as a Galactico was short lived and he returned to England, joining Newcastle United, after just one season in Spain. Injuries in his first year meant he played little in his first season at St. James’s Park. Then a damaged anterior cruciate ligament in his knee, suffered in the opening minutes of England’s 2006 World Cup game against Sweden, meant he missed almost all of the following season.
The move to Newcastle would prove to be the beginning of an early decline for Owen. In the preceding five seasons he had played in 157 league games, for Liverpool and Real Madrid. In the five years following his departure from Madrid he played just 90 league games, scoring just 29 goals.
He joined Manchester United on a free transfer, in 2009. He played 19 times for United in the Premier League in his first season at the club, but scored just 3 goals. Owen signed a 3 year deal but didn’t make a single league appearance in the final year and was released when his contract expired. The moment which most will remember him for in a United shirt was the dramatic stoppage time
His final destination was Stoke City, signing on a free transfer in the early weeks of this season. So far he has made 6 league appearances, scoring once.
Owen's statement goes on to say:
“Having progressed through the ranks at Liverpool to make my first team debut at 17, before embarking upon spells at Real Madrid, Newcastle United, Manchester United and Stoke City, not to mention representing my country on 89 occasions, I now feel it is the right time to bring the curtain down on my career.
I have been very fortunate in that my career has taken me on a journey that like many young players starting out, I could only have dreamt of."
