Liverpool 1991–1996: Youth career before
Jamie Carragher's Testimonial Match in 2010 At age 12, when Owen started attending secondary school, he became eligible to sign a schoolboy contract with a club. The first major club to spot him playing for Deeside was
Liverpool.
Brian Kidd came down from
Manchester United and there was also interest from
Chelsea and
Arsenal. But
Steve Heighway, the Liverpool youth development officer, wrote to Owen personally. Terry Owen stated: "[Heighway] wrote us a smashing letter and it was love at first sight for Michael, he was impressed from day one." Throughout this time, Owen had continued his studies and achieved ten
GCSEs. Despite the academic success, Owen also declared his aim was "a first-team place in the next year or so". On 6 May 1997, Owen scored on his Liverpool debut against
Wimbledon at
Selhurst Park. Liverpool were league title challengers to Manchester United but their failure to beat Wimbledon in the penultimate game of the league season handed the championship to United. The
Liverpool Echo wrote, "[Only] Michael Owen could emerge with any credit from a performance that mocked Anfield's rich traditions." Owen recorded many personal feats during the season and helped Liverpool challenge for the league championship, but ultimately a run of bad form in February saw the club bowing out of the title race. The
Liverpool Echo wrote that, "[Owen] has become Liverpool's most precious performer and, quite simply, their saviour." Owen returned to action after almost five months of layoff during the
1999–2000 season. He had completed only six full games by January and, during a frustrating spell punctuated by recurring breakdowns, The persistent hamstring problems ended up robbing Liverpool of Owen for a third of a season in which a lack of goals eventually cost them a place in the
Champions League. Owen was thus the recipient of the
Ballon d'Or in recognition of his performances that season. He became the most recent English winner of the European Footballer of the Year award, and the first Englishman to win the award since
Kevin Keegan in 1979. Owen scored both of Liverpool's goals in their triumph over Arsenal in the
2001 FA Cup Final as they came back from 1–0 down to win 2–1. Liverpool and Owen challenged for the league championship during the
2001–02 season. The team eventually finished runners-up to Arsenal, with Owen playing a key part in the campaign. He also led them to success in the
Charity Shield and the
UEFA Super Cup during the start of the season in 2001. Liverpool thus became the first English team to win five trophies in one calendar year.
Real Madrid president
Florentino Pérez started as early as in March 2002 to pursue Owen. However, a run of disastrous results starting from November and culminating in January saw the team bow out of the title race. Chelsea pipped Liverpool to the fourth and final Champions League spot on the final day of the season. Owen was also controversially overlooked for the PFA Player of the Year award during the season. Success in the League Cup also meant that Liverpool had ended up with a trophy for a third consecutive season. Owen had scored in the
League Cup Final against Manchester United to clinch the trophy for Liverpool. Transfer speculation had continued linking him to Real Madrid and
Barcelona. Owen was quoted as saying, "I really have to be playing in the Champions League and that is something [Liverpool] have to remedy." Owen would later refute the quote, stating, "Some of the words I never even said and the rest were taken completely out of context." Houllier moved to re-shape the Liverpool squad in 2003 to reassure Owen. After a shaky start to the
2003–04 season, Liverpool emerged as title contenders once more, with Owen leading the charge. Owen only played intermittently over the following months, suffering from niggling ankle and hamstring injuries, while Liverpool's season fell apart. Owen helped reignite Liverpool's hunt for fourth spot, scoring his 150th goal for Liverpool in the subsequent match against
Portsmouth on 15 February, and although suffering from further injuries, ultimately led Liverpool to the fourth and final Champions League spot. Following Gérard Houllier's sacking as Liverpool manager, speculation about Owen's departure from the club began. During the first few Champions League games at the start of the
2004–05 season, Owen sat on the bench to avoid being
cup-tied for the Champions League, something that would have meant he would be unable to play in European competitions for any other club that season. Since 1998, Owen had been Liverpool's top scorer every season until he left the club. Real Madrid signed him for a fee of £8 million on 13 August 2004, with midfielder
Antonio Núñez moving in the other direction as a make-weight.
Real Madrid Following their successful bid, on 14 August 2004, Real Madrid officially presented Owen with the number 11 shirt. Owen joined the club during its
Galácticos era, and played alongside the "big four" of preceding star signings, namely
Luís Figo,
Zinedine Zidane,
Ronaldo, and
David Beckham, as well as prominent team players from the pre-Galácticos era;
Raúl,
Roberto Carlos, and
Iker Casillas. A few days later, he scored his first
La Liga goal in a 1–0 victory over
Valencia. The scoring spree continued, as he found the back of the net in three of the next four matches to make it five goals in seven matches. On 10 April 2005, Owen scored Real Madrid's fourth goal in a 4–2
El Clásico win over Barcelona at the
Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. Owen ended the
2004–05 season with 13 goals in
La Liga, with the season's highest ratio of goals scored to number of minutes played. Following Madrid's signing of two high-profile Brazilian forwards,
Robinho and
Júlio Baptista, in the summer of 2005, the speculation arose that Owen would return to the Premier League. During his time at Real Madrid, Owen scored 16 goals from 45 games, 26 of which were starts.
Newcastle United 2005–2007: Club record transfer and injuries On 24 August 2005,
Newcastle United announced that they had agreed to a club record fee of £16.8 million to obtain Owen, although they still had to negotiate with the player's advisers. Liverpool and local rivals Everton entered the fray, but were unwilling to match Madrid's asking price. As the
2006 World Cup was less than a year away, Owen wanted to get more playing time to secure his position as the first-choice striker in the
England squad and joined Newcastle amid rumours that he had inserted an escape clause valued at £12 million. On 31 August 2005, Owen signed a four-year contract to play for Newcastle, despite initial press speculation that he would rather have returned to Liverpool. Some 20,000 fans were present at Newcastle's home ground of
St James' Park for Owen's official unveiling as a Newcastle player. Several days after signing, he suffered a thigh-injury in pre-season, which ruled him out for the start of the
2005–06 season. He scored his first goal for the club on his second appearance, the second goal in a 3–0 away win at
Blackburn Rovers on 18 September, Newcastle's first win of the season. Owen scored his first
hat-trick for Newcastle in the 4–2 away win over West Ham United on 17 December. It was also a "perfect
hat trick", with one goal scored with each of his left foot, right foot and head. On 31 December 2005, Owen broke a
metatarsal bone in his foot in a match against
Tottenham Hotspur. He underwent 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 did not go as hoped and on 24 March he underwent a second, minor operation. Owen then stated that he should be fit for the final few weeks of the season with Newcastle. His return to action finally came against
Birmingham City on 29 April 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. He underwent a further X-ray and made himself unavailable for Newcastle's final game of the season. A damaged
anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his right knee, sustained in the first minute of the group match against
Sweden at the
2006 FIFA World Cup, kept Owen out of regular football for nearly a year, until April 2007. The seriousness of Owen's injury at the World Cup inflamed the so-called "club-versus-country" row in England, centring on the liability of the world governing body
FIFA and
The Football Association (FA) for the cost of injuries to players incurred while on international duty. The Owen case was a high-profile follow-up to an already ongoing legal claim for compensation from FIFA over an injury incurred by
Abdelmajid Oulmers on international duty. By April 2007, Newcastle were threatening to take out an injunction to stop the FA from picking Owen for England games. The club finally reached a compromise settlement figure with FIFA and the FA; FIFA indicated that the settlement was between £6 million and £7 million. The club, stating that Owen's wages had "now been paid in full", stated the overall compensation achieved totalled £10 million. Resulting from the Owen compensation claim, the FA doubled their future insurance coverage of England players to £100,000, and FIFA introduced a compensation fund for injuries sustained at World Cups. Owen began light training on 12 February 2007, when pictures on the club's official website highlighted Owen running and carrying out minor exercises. He made his comeback from injury on 10 April 2007 in a 4–1 behind-closed-doors friendly against
Gretna, scoring after ten minutes and then setting up fellow striker
Shola Ameobi before coming off an hour later. Owen then started his first game for Newcastle in over a year, a 1–0 loss against
Reading on 30 April 2007. He played the full 90 minutes, having a goal disallowed for
offside. Owen was stretchered off an hour into Newcastle's game with
Watford on 13 May 2007, suffering concussion after colliding with teammate
Matty Pattison. On 9 May 2007, Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd reacted angrily to reports that Owen could move on to another club at the end of the
2006–07 season due to a release clause in his contract. A report in
The Times newspaper suggested Owen could be available for less than £10 million and could be a target for the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal. Despite these reports, Shepherd warned Owen "to show some loyalty" and warned him that "none of the big four clubs want him". In a video posted on YouTube, however, a group of Liverpool fans asked Shepherd if they could re-sign Owen, he responded by saying that he would "carry Owen back to Liverpool" himself. Shepherd also stated his dislike of Owen's agent but praised Owen as a "good lad". This led many to believe that Owen would exercise his right to leave if the £9 million valuation was matched. On 12 July 2007, however, Owen committed his immediate future to Newcastle, stating, "I believe that these can be good times to be at Newcastle, which is why I am more than happy to be here."
2007–2009: Declined form and injuries On 17 July 2007, he scored for Newcastle in a pre-season friendly against
Hartlepool United. Several days later, Owen picked up a thigh injury in training. Newcastle manager Sam Allardyce said that Owen was likely to miss the start of the forthcoming Premier League season due to the injury which "doesn't look as encouraging as we first thought". Owen made his comeback from injury in a club friendly on 13 August 2007 and declared himself available for Newcastle's next match, against
Aston Villa, as well as England's forthcoming international matches. On 29 August 2007, Owen scored his first competitive goal for Newcastle since December 2005 when he scored in the
League Cup against
Barnsley. Three days later, he scored in the league with a late winner against
Wigan Athletic. In late September 2007, after an encouraging start to the season playing for both Newcastle and England, it was reported that he would urgently require an operation for a double
hernia and would likely be out of action for at least a month. In his first match back from the hernia operation, he scored a late goal coming off the substitutes bench to clinch victory for Newcastle over Everton. In November 2007, Owen suffered a thigh strain while on international duty, ruling him out for six weeks. This reignited the "club or country" row, with then Newcastle manager Sam Allardyce voicing his disappointment that Owen was risked in a low-key friendly game against
Austria. After over three months without a goal, Owen scored the first goal of the second
Kevin Keegan era in a 4–1
FA Cup third round replay win over
Stoke City on 16 January 2008, although Keegan was only a spectator in the stands for this game. Owen was awarded the captaincy by Keegan on 19 January 2008. He scored his first league goal of 2008 on 3 February. Owen's goal in the 2–0 defeat of
Fulham on 22 March 2008, which marked Newcastle's first win under Keegan's second spell as manager, also marked the first time in his Newcastle career that Owen had scored more goals for Newcastle than against them. By 5 April 2008, after his and the team's early season poor form, Owen had scored six goals in the previous six matches, with Newcastle registering four wins and two draws, lifting Newcastle into mid-table after earlier relegation fears. In the final game of the season, Owen scored in a 3–1 loss at Everton, finishing with 11 goals in total, putting him in equal 13th position for Premier League goals for the 2007–08 season. Owen missed all of the pre-season matches and training of the
2008–09 season due to a bout of
mumps, which also kept him out of the international friendlies with the
USA and
Trinidad and Tobago in May 2008. He also suffered a calf strain during the summer months which kept him out of the opening game of the season against Manchester United at
Old Trafford, a game which Newcastle drew 1–1. He made his return in the second game of the season against Bolton Wanderers on 23 August 2008, coming on in the 53rd minute for the injured Obafemi Martins. He scored the winning header in the 71st minute, with the game finishing 1–0. Three days later, he was named on the bench in a
League Cup match away to
Coventry City, he came on as a substitute and scored the winner in extra time in a 2–3 victory. In the 2008–09 season, he featured more consistently than in prior seasons, scoring four goals in twelve league appearances. Under the transfer rules, with the 2008–09 season being the final year of his contract with Newcastle, Owen would have been allowed to sign a pre-contract agreement with other clubs during January. On 22 December 2008, Owen rejected a new contract offer from Newcastle, but stated that he would not be seeking a move in the January transfer window and instead intended to postpone talks over his contract situation until the end of the season. With speculation over his future continuing in the second half of the season, Owen received "substantial damages" in June in the High Court in London and a public apology following a story on 15 May in the
Daily Express alleging that due to a lack of interest from Premier League clubs, Owen's career was effectively finished and he intended to retire. After a disastrous season in general for the club, which culminated in Owen's former Newcastle and England teammate
Alan Shearer being brought in as a temporary manager for the final eight games of the season. Michael's alleged refusal to play in this run including a crucial home against Fulham ( proved costly, as on the final day of the season on 24 May 2009, Newcastle were relegated from the Premier League for the first time in 15 years. On 14 June, it was reported that Owen's management company Wasserman Media Group had sent out a 34-page brochure advertising Owen to several potential clubs. On 22 June, Owen confirmed he would not be re-signing for Newcastle, in preference for a move to a Premier League club, or another top-flight foreign club.
Manchester United 2009–2010: Debut season on 16 August 2009. On 3 July 2009, it was announced that Owen had signed a two-year deal with Manchester United,
arch rivals of Liverpool. A surprise move, Owen said that the approach from manager
Alex Ferguson was "out of the blue". He signed a pay-as-you-play deal Owen scored his first goal for United on his debut, scoring an 84th-minute winner after coming on as a substitute in a pre-season friendly against a Malaysian XI; he followed this up by scoring three more goals in United's pre-season games. Owen made his league debut for United when he came on as a substitute against Birmingham City on 16 August in a 1–0 win, and scored his first competitive goal in a Manchester United shirt against Wigan Athletic on 22 August in a 5–0 away win. On 20 September, Owen scored his first goal at Old Trafford, in the sixth minute of stoppage time against local rivals Manchester City to give United a
4–3 derby win. This meant that Owen had now scored in his third derby, after scoring in the
Merseyside derby, and the
Tyne–Wear derby in previous years. Owen struggled to recall the moments immediately after the goal, and said that it ranked as one of his most important. On 27 October, Owen scored a goal in the 2–0 away win against Barnsley to qualify United past the fourth round of the League Cup. On 3 November, Owen scored his first Champions League goal for Manchester United, as he grabbed United's first in the 3–3 draw against
CSKA Moscow. Owen's seemingly slim chances of earning a place in
Fabio Capello's England squad for the 2010 World Cup finals in 2010 received a boost when on 8 December 2009, Owen scored his first hat-trick for Manchester United in a 3–1 away win against
VfL Wolfsburg in the
Champions League, his first hat-trick since 2005. On 28 February 2010, Owen scored United's first goal in their 2–1 victory over Aston Villa in the
2010 League Cup final, but had to be substituted after pulling up on 42 minutes. Originally thought to be a minor injury, on 5 March it was announced Owen required surgery on his hamstring, ruling him out for the rest of the season.
2010–2011: Premier League title . Owen scored his first goal for United back from injury in a 7–1 pre-season victory against a
League of Ireland XI on 4 August 2010 at the newly built
Aviva Stadium. On 22 September 2010, Owen scored twice during a 5–2 away win over
Scunthorpe United in the third round of the
League Cup, his first goals of the season. Four days later, Owen scored his first league goal of the season, United's second equaliser with his first touch in a 2–2 away draw against Bolton Wanderers. Owen's first goal of 2011 came in United's 2–1
FA Cup victory over
Southampton at
St Mary's Stadium on 29 January. On 25 February, United manager Alex Ferguson said that Owen was a key part of his squad for the rest of the season. However, he suffered a groin injury and missed his team's next four games. His return match was on 19 March when he returned to the bench for United's game against Bolton. By the time of United's penultimate game of the season, he had reached the number of league appearances required for a title winner's medal – his first in 15 seasons as a professional. The game, on 14 May 2011, only required United to draw with Blackburn Rovers at
Ewood Park to win the title, and a 1–1 draw secured it for them. Owen was an unused substitute in the game. Owen scored United's final goal in their last league game of the season, at home to
Blackpool, in which the
Red Devils won 4–2. Owen was an unused substitute in United's
Champions League final defeat to Barcelona, marking the end of his season. He signed a one-year extension to his contract on 1 June 2011.
2011–2012: Limited appearances of Everton Owen started his first game of the season in the third round of the League Cup against Leeds United. He scored two goals in the first half, helping United to progress to the fourth round with a 3–0 win. His first goal came after he advanced to the box and scuffed a shot into the corner of the net. The second goal came on the half-hour mark, when he met
Mame Biram Diouf's cross with instant control, before firing a right foot shot into the top. Owen started his second game of the season in the fourth round of the League Cup, against
League Two club
Aldershot Town. He scored the second goal of the 3–0 win.
Dimitar Berbatov completed a run down the right flank before pulling the ball back into the box, with Owen scoring past
Ross Worner. Owen started in United's home
Champions League group stage match against
Oțelul Galați on 2 November, however he was substituted early in the first half when he pulled up with a thigh injury; this was his last appearance for the team. In February 2012, Owen started light training with the Manchester United squad. From April 2012, Owen started full training but was not yet ready for first team games. On 13 May 2012, Owen was named as a substitute against
Sunderland in United's final fixture, but he was not brought on. On 17 May 2012, Owen announced on
Twitter that Manchester United would not be offering him a new deal, ending his three-year association with the club.
Stoke City On 4 September 2012, Owen joined Stoke City on a one-year contract. He was handed the number 10 shirt from the departed
Ricardo Fuller and made his debut in a 1–1 draw against Manchester City on 15 September. The start to his time at Stoke was hampered by a hamstring injury. Owen scored his first and only goal for Stoke on 19 January 2013 in a 3–1 defeat at
Swansea City, his first goal since 25 October 2011. In doing so, he became only the seventh player to reach 150 Premier League goals. On 19 March 2013, Owen announced that he would retire from playing at the end of the
2012–13 season. He was restricted to just eight Premier League appearances for Stoke, all coming from the substitutes' bench, including in his final appearance on 19 May 2013 against Southampton, where he received a standing ovation from both sets of supporters. Owen had indicated that he would like to become involved with
Chester in some capacity when he retires, as it was his local team growing up and his father played for the old
Chester side which went out of business in March 2010 and was reformed at a lower level. ==International career==