Play It Again, Michael--and English Teenager Did
We take you now on a brief journey away from France 98, to an altogether more exotic locale. Our destination is Morocco, more specifically Casablanca, and more specifically still, that vast concrete bowl known as Mohamed V Stadium.
It is a Wednesday night in late May and England is playing Morocco in the four-nation King Hassan II tournament.
England is on the attack and there is a tremendous collision in the goalmouth as Moroccan goalkeeper Driss Benzakri slams into an English player, knocking him unconscious.
The team’s trainers and doctor rush out onto the field, bending anxiously over the fallen player as they try to revive him. After a minute or so, he comes around, stares up at them glassy-eyed and says, “Don’t take me off.”
Foolish? Possibly. Brave? Unquestionably. Surprising? Not in the least.
Because 18-year-old Michael Owen has been defying the odds and performing the impossible for more than a year now.
Which is why, even though England has been knocked out of the World Cup, fans in France still are talking in awe of his goal against Argentina in Saint-Etienne last Tuesday and contemplating just how far the teenager’s unquestioned talent can carry him.
But back to Casablanca.
“The goalkeeper hit me on the chin and I can’t remember a thing about what happened for the next minute,” Owen said at the time. “I wasn’t feeling good, but I didn’t want to tell the doctor because I wanted to carry on.”
So he did, and in the 59th minute of the game he made soccer history, silencing 80,000 Moroccans by scoring the goal that gave England a 1-0 victory.
The result was unimportant, but the goal was monumental. It meant that Owen, at 18 years 164 days, had become the youngest player ever to score for England. The record had stood for 60 years, set by Tommy Lawton in 1938 when he scored against Wales in Cardiff at 19 years six days.
Only three months earlier, Owen had become the youngest English player this century when, at 18 years 59 days, he made his national team debut in a 2-0 loss to Chile at Wembley. He was named England’s player of the match.
Afterward, the public clamored for his inclusion on the World Cup team, and the praise of players and coaches came from all corners.
“I don’t think I can ever remember an 18-year-old making such an impact in his first full international,” England captain Alan Shearer said. “You are still ever so young at 18, but with the way Michael goes about things, you’d think he has been around a long time.
“One thing the manager [Glenn Hoddle] is always saying is, ‘If you’re good enough, you’re old enough’--and Michael certainly proved that.
“Your first international is something special, a massive occasion, but when I saw Michael in the dressing room beforehand he looked fine. There were no nerves or problems. He wasn’t overawed and it looked as if he was looking forward to the game.
“But out on the pitch where it counts, I think he proved to everyone--if he had to prove anything--that he isn’t fazed by anything.
“He’s come to Wembley, the national stadium with all its tradition, and in front of a virtual full house, and shown that he is not frightened of such things.”
Born in Chester on Dec. 14, 1979, Owen had risen swiftly through the ranks of the England youth teams. The son of a former professional player, he was 16 when he signed for Liverpool and 17 when he made his Premier League debut in May of last year, scoring in his first game.
Owen’s play for Liverpool has kept Germany’s 1990 World Cup-winning forward Karlheinz Riedle on the bench. And Riedle, who has played alongside such stars as Rudi Voeller, Jurgen Klinsmann and Giuseppe Signori, knows why.
“I have never known a striker like him--he’s the best I’ve ever played with,” he said.
Other accolades poured in, immediately after the game against Chile and later too.
Said Nobby Stiles, England’s World Cup-winning midfielder of 1966: “He showed sharpness, pace and control, but the biggest thing was that he didn’t freeze. It’s nerve-racking enough to make your England debut, never mind when you’re still 18, but he showed great confidence.”
And from England’s Gary Lineker, the top scorer in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico: “He is infinitely more talented than I was at that stage--or was at my peak, probably. . . . He looks an awesome talent, there’s no question about that. His age shouldn’t count against him and he doesn’t have the fear that some older players might have.”
What Owen does have is speed. The way he blew past Argentina’s defenders was eye-opening.
“I don’t think pace is essential and it is not the only thing you need to be a footballer,” Owen said before the World Cup began, “but the game these days is getting quicker and quicker and it can only help if you are fast.
“If you have a bit of a football brain to go with it, then so much the better. I used to win a lot of races at school, but I would have never said then that I’d turn out to be as quick as I am now.
“It’s just something I think I’ve been blessed with and everyone in my family has been quite quick.”
But it’s more than that, according to Hoddle.
“He’s got great movement and understanding of the game, and pace as well,” England’s coach said. “A lot of them [young players] have pace but don’t quite understand what they need to do; others have good movement, but don’t have the pace. He’s got both.
“I’m excited by him--we all have to be excited by somebody who can come on at this level in intimidating circumstances and still produce a very good performance.”
Owen was spotted young. By the time he was 12, he had broken former Liverpool and Wales great Ian Rush’s goal-scoring total for the Flintshire Primary Schools team in North Wales.
David Nickless, secretary and treasurer of the team, first met England’s newest star when Owen was an 8-year-old arriving for a tryout. He stayed three years, two of them as captain, and left a trail of broken records behind him.
“Even when he played for us he was just one of the lads,” Nickless told Britain’s Press Assn. in February. “He never gave the impression that if it had not been for him, we wouldn’t have won.
“When he was asked to sign for Liverpool, he didn’t go around saying that he was better than anyone else.”
Nickless believes Owen will not buckle under the pressures thrust upon him so young.
“He’s got the security of his family, who have always been very supportive,” he said. “He just goes up to Liverpool, does his training, then comes home and leads the life of any other 18-year-old.”
Right, just another 18-year-old of whom Switzerland’s national team coach, Gilbert Gress, says: “He can be the player of the future--not just for England, but for the world.”
At France 98, Owen showed that might not be an exaggeration.
The English fans, the majority of them packed into one end of Stade Geoffroy-Guichard for the Argentina game, paid him the ultimate tribute, spontaneously breaking into a chorus of “One Michael Owen, there’s only one Michael Owen.”
Which, from a U.S. perspective, leaves only one question: Where are the American Michael Owens?
