Michael Owen (full name Michael James Owen) was born on December 14, 1979 in Chester, Cheshire. He is an English football player, currently (2007) playing for Newcastle United. Michael Owen has also famously played for Liverpool and Real Madrid. Michael Owen plays as a striker, and is noted particularly for his speed, acceleration and clinical finishing. Michael Owen 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.
Biography and Career :
He first played for his primary school team in Hawarden, Wales, breaking all local scoring records in his first season. From the age of 14 Michael Owen attended the FA's School of Excellence in Staffordshire but also continued to study at the loca
l Hawarden High School and picked up ten GCSEs.
Liverpool signed Michael Owen as an apprentice while in his teens, although as a boy he had been a supporter of their local arch-rivals Everton. With Owen's help, Liverpool's youth team won the FA Youth Cup in 1996. Michael Owen signed professional forms for the senior team just after his seventeenth birthday in December 1996, making a sensational debut for the team against Wimbledon in May 1997, coming on as a substitute and scoring a goal. With an injury to Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen 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. Michael 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.
Michael 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 friendly match against Chile in February 1998. Playing in this game made Michael Owen the youngest player to represent England in the whole of the 20th century.
Michael 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. Michael Owen's first goal for England, against
Morocco in another friendly game just prior to this tournament, only increased these calls. The goal also made Michael Owen the youngest ever player to have scored for England, until his record was surpassed by Wayne Rooney in 2003.
Although Michael Owen 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 lost that match and went out of the tournament, but Michael 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.
Michael Owen has since played for England in Euro 2000 and Euro 2004, and the 2002 World Cup, scoring goals in all three tournaments. This makes him the only player to ever have scored in four major tournaments for England. Michael Owen even scored a hat-trick against Germany in the 2001 qualifying campaign for the 2002 World Cup, the first English player to score a hat-trick against Germany since Geoff Hurst, who scored his hat trick in the 1966 World Cup Final. He subsequently scored a second hat-trick against Colombia in New Jersey in May 2005.
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.
As of November 2005, Owen has been capped seventy-five times for England and scored thirty-five 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.
Michael Owen's Dates :
Michael Owen (2005)
Michael Owen Image : vg.no
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