This week marks not only Michael Owen’s 31st birthday, but also the ninth anniversary of his supposed elevation to European football’s elite; the award of the 2001 Ballon d’Or. The accolade may have surprised some pundits at the time but few criticised with any real venom. Nine years on, even the most optimistic among us would be hard pressed to argue with those who would point to Owen’s unveilling as European Footballer of the Year as both his career zenith and the start of his seemingly interminable nadir.

The Ballon d’Or of unfulfillment

In fact, for those who understand the way the Ballon d’Or is conferred, there have never been any real doubts about Owen as a suitable candidate for the time. At the age of just 21, he had just led Liverpool to a five-trophy haul in a five month span. Although the league title continued to elude the Reds (who had also failed to qualify for the Champions League the season before, entering and winning the UEFA Cup instead) every other competition that they entered they emerged from victorious. Owen himself memorably turned the FA Cup final on its head, brilliantly slotting home twice past David Seaman in the last ten minutes to rescue Liverpool, shatter Arsenal and send the Scouse end of the Millennium Stadium into ecstasy. Owen and his strike-partner Heskey’s assault on the Bayern Munich and Manchester United defences at the start of the 2001/02 season claimed the UEFA Super Cup and Charity Shield, sparking real hopes that Gerard Houllier would indeed be the man to bring the title back to Anfield after an unbearable dry spell for English football’s most successful club. In September, Owen notched his immortal hat trick against a German national side that had not been beaten in Munich for nearly thirty years and that had lost only one world cup qualifying game in their previous sixty.

Owen and Gerrard in happier times

Of course, Houllier and Owen did not bring about an end to the drought at Anfield, which drags on into a third decade. Liverpool finished as high as they have ever managed in the Premier League, second, without really challenging an untouchable Arsenal side that season. The following season they failed to qualify for the Champions League yet again and presented no threat to eventual champions Manchester United. Another uninspiring season followed and it is here that the very reason for his Ballon d’Or success seemed to have finally driven Owen to distraction. His ability to shoulder the deficiencies of a constantly transitional Liverpool team and compensate with goals had been going on almost consistently since his debut as a 17 year old. His decision to sign for Real Madrid after yet another season as top-scorer for Liverpool has been pondered over and even ridiculed for years. Statistically, his solitary season at the Bernabau produced a creditable goals-to-game ratio, but his overall form was judged to be poor by the Madristas, perhaps harshly. The number of games he started on the bench solidified his image as a glamorous but typically redundant toy in Florentino Perez’s too-many cooks collection of galacticos . Even the most ardent England fan and Owen loyalist who still relived the days of the slalom run and thumping shot in St. Etienne began to wonder; if Owen could compete with Raul, Ronaldo et al.

He returned to England in 2005, making the mistake of listening to Alan Shearer wax lyrical about Newcastle United’s progress and promise. He would spend the next four seasons either injured, recovering or looking aimless and without hunger on the pitch, the antithesis of younger self. He managed a meagre 30 goals for the Tyneside club. As Newcastle were relegated at the end of his contract, Owen seemed almost a disinterested party and with the Bosman rule being what it is, he had essentially become yet another mercenary, journeyman footballer. He was snapped up by Sir Alex Ferguson in 2009 for a Manchester United side that had just won a third consecutive league title but that was also reeling from the loss of Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo, two world-class goalscorers. Owen won a third league cup with the weakened United side, scoring in the final and stabbing home a 96th minute winner in a wonderful derby against Manchester City, but nothing more of note fell his way. United this season may well reclaim the league title for a record-breaking nineteenth time, but Owen will be lucky to make enough appearances to earn a winner’s medal. It’s all too easy for football fans to judge players too highly based on what they’ve won, after all Wes Brown is a double European cup winner while Fabio Cannavaro has never touched the thing. Perhaps Owen wouldn’t swap his goal in El Classico for a place on the Istanbul podium with Gerrard and Carragher, but he’s a bigger man than I would be in his situation not to hold it bitterly against fate. No regrets, as they say.

A league cup – but where is the love?

It bears reminiscing about Owen’s highlights at the turn of the century, if only to be kind to the man, but talk of those days increasingly feels like a mixture of sympathy and desperation to justify hype that could never be fulfilled. That Ballon d’Or has been a weight around Owen’s neck and it feels representative of a failed investment from the footballing community in Owen’s potential; something that he has allowed to trickle out in the most frustrating of fashions. As he watches the future of the game unfold from his spot on the Manchester United bench or from under the eagle eye of Tony Strudwick, United’s fitness coach, the thought that must flash across his mind from time to time, however briefly, can only be that it shouldn’t have been like this.

AUTHOR: JOSEPH YOUNG