da betsson： They say that he might have been held in more esteem by Liverpool fans if he hadn’t signed for Manchester United, but Michael Owen’s contribution to the Anfield club certainly isn’t matched by the fans’ affinity for him. A one in two striker, despite his injury issues, the former England man can certainly claim to
da doce： No matter if he left in 2004 to go to Real Madrid in the last year of his contract, and therefore for the surprisingly low fee of £8m plus Antonio Nunez. In fact, it’s a shocking fee for a man who had won the Ballon d’Or just a few years previously. None of that really mattered too much. It was the United link that really hurt.
It wasn’t just the fact that Owen won a Premier League title playing for Liverpool’s arch rivals – something his Liverpool contemporaries couldn’t manage at Anfield – but more the former striker’s stubborn insistence that he should support every side he’d ever played for. So much so that he now has the habit of calling Manchester United ‘we’ when sitting in a pundit’s chair. It’s short-sighted at best.
But for Owen, clearly club loyalty is a much more fluid thing than it is for most fans. And that’s probably to be expected given the fact that he wasn’t even a Liverpool fan before signing a schoolboy contract at the Anfield club at the age of 12.
Owen wasn’t the first – and won’t be the last – Liverpool player to grow up supporting Everton as a boy. Robbie Fowler and Jamie Carragher are both examples of obvious Liverpool legends whose names weren’t tarnished a jot by association with the blue half of the city.
There is plainly an obvious and heated rivalry between Liverpool and Everton, but there is also an acceptance that, in a football mad city, there are going to be those who cross the divide when offered the chance to play professional football at the club they didn’t grow up supporting. Celebrating goals for Manchester United is another matter.
Footballing loyalty, though, is a precious commodity, something that wins players more than just trophies. And despite winning a famous Scouse treble at Liverpool in 2001, moving just the summer before the Reds lifted the Champions League trophy in one of the most iconic moments in the club’s history sort of seems fitting. Because although Owen was a one in two striker who served his club with distinction, his departure seems to have been precipitated by a sort of misplaced belief that he could never amount to any more at Anfield. After all, the last time Liverpool won the league, he hadn’t even jumped on the bandwagon.
In a way, though, he’s right. And it really all depends where your priorities lie.
After all, Liverpool still haven’t won a league title, but Owen has. He will always have a medal from his two-year stint at United at the end of his career, and he even scored nine goals for the club in that title-winning season, and although his contribution was certainly minimised by his age and squad role, he wasn’t totally useless. It’s one medal he wouldn’t have won had he stayed at Liverpool, too, like Carragher and Steven Gerrard.
But, unlike those two, Owen doesn’t have a Champions League medal. He doesn’t have the memory of a stunning comeback to beat AC Milan on penalties in arguably the most memorable Champions League final of all time. And perhaps more importantly, he doesn’t have the adulation and love of an immensely emotional football club and its passionate fans.
As a fan, at various different points, of Everton, Liverpool and Manchester United, perhaps that’s hardly a disappointment to a man who sees his loyalty to any club he gave his professional commitment and considerable talent to.
And maybe that just highlights the difference between football fans and players. The fans’ emotional attachment to their football club has no connection to loyalty – it doesn’t need to because it presupposes you’ll never switch clubs. Switching just isn’t on anyone’s radar. But for players that’s different. When you give your life to football – making sure you train, sleep and eat right – you give your life to the team you play for. Loyalty isn’t presupposed. And that’s why fans find it such a precious thing in a player.
Footballing talent alone would have made Michael Owen a Liverpool legend for the rest of his life. But to Owen, you feel that it was never much more than a game. To those who decide whether or not to embrace him as a hero, it’s so much more than that.