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Michael Owen

Current club: Newcastle United
Number: 10
Personal website: www.michaelowen.com

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 (1996–2004) and Real Madrid (2004-05). He plays as a striker and 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. Owen is currently England's 4th highest scorer of all time, with 37 goals in 82 games for his country, with him being England's leading competitive goalscorer on 23 goals.

Pace and clinical finishing were Owen's greatest assets early in his career, though some consider he has since lost some pace due to injuries. Owen has recently returned from a year and a half of recurrent injuries sustained since December 2005.

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 (netting on his only appearance in a win over Greece Under-21 at Carrow Road) before he made his début 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.

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 of the regular captain.

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 6, 2007, Owen has been capped 82 times for England and scored 37 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 holds the record for goals for England in competitive matches, i.e. World Cup and European Championship games and the qualifiers for those tournaments, having scored twenty-three times in such games.

After playing only 51 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. This finished off what Owen regarded as a rotten tournament for him, and completely ruined his chances of being the first ever England player to score in five successive major international tournaments for his country. 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 was expected to be out of action for about a year.

Owen underwent successful ACL reconstruction surgery, carried out by Dr. Richard Steadman, on 6 September 2006. The injury sidelined him until April 2007, meaning he missed England's first 6 matches in qualifying for Euro 2008. He returned for the England B game against Albania, and was named in the full squad for the games against Brazil and Estonia, with Owen stating "I feel sharp and, if given the chance, I feel confident when in front of goal." He played in both matches and scored against Estonia breaking Gary Lineker's record for most goals in competitive internationals for England.