Felipe, old friend, we will always have Michael Owen

Felipe, old friend, we will always have Michael Owen
by Alistair Bond

In 2009 I was living in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Due to my rudimentary Portuguese and at times, over-eager girl-friending, I had few friends. One in fact. Felipe. Felipe loved Brazil, Corinthians, Ronaldo de Lima and Michael Owen.

“What happened to Michael Owen? He was so, so good”, he asked me one day.

At this point Michael Owen was still an ongoing concern. But not really. Once upon a time his name eclipsed every England player. He had an international profile that a Paul Gascoigne or Alan Shearer could only imagine.

In 1998, the teenage Michael Owen had induced gasps all over the world, and nowhere more than Brazil. The solo wonder goal against the despised Argentinians provoked delight and envy. Surely this level-headed young man would go on to rule the world. He was the new Messi, before Lionel Messi.

But by 2009, not yet in his 30s, Owen was residing in the ‘where-are-they-now files’, seeing out his career while the goals diminished alarmingly, if not the paychecks.

In Reboot, Michael Owen’s 2019 second stab at an autobiography, he tries to explain why.

Regrettably, self-reflection requires self-awareness and humility, virtues Owen lacks. Dodgy knees and tight hamstrings unquestionably played their part in his demise, but no more than dreadful decision-making, inflated self-importance and greed.

How bitterly he regrets his move away from Liverpool. If only the club had tried harder to keep him! Why, he asks, does he not receive the same love as Ian Rush from Liverpool supporters, even as he tries to redefine the word “loyalty”.

His forgettable season at the Bernabeu he attributes to lackluster supporters and the inability of the club to provide his family with suitable accommodation whilst defiantly stating that at no time did his family ever try to integrate into their new surroundings.

Owen sees his time at Newcastle as an embarrassment. His pitiful output at St. James’ Park he blames on inferior teammates and deluded supporters. To the reader it seems as though his Men-Behaving-Badly lifestyle with his Dad(!) and his constant gambling may have played their parts.

(As an aside, it’s with gambling where Michael goes full-on Marie Antoinette. Responding to criticism he’d racked up debts of over 30,000 pounds, he laments that the masses should understand that 30 grand to him is nothing, no more than 20 quid to the man on the street. What’s the problem? If only people understood just how rich he is!)

But if Owen struggles to recognise his own shortcomings, he is in his Ballon D’Or-winning pomp when it comes to finding them in others. A tidal wave of passive aggression is aimed at Alan Shearer, and David Beckham (who Michael is insanely jealous of) gets it in the neck at EVERY opportunity. No slight is playful; they’re all delivered with genuine rancor. Owen humiliates Paul Gascoigne, condescends Kevin Keegan, and his ultimate derision is reserved for the unlikely figure of Darius Vassell, whose worm-like cowardice Owen blames for England’s failure to win Euro 2004.

But for all of Owen’s failures, this is an insightful book, just not in the way he probably hoped it would be.

Rather than dispelling the notion of Owen as rather a dull man obsessed with money it reinforces and expands on it. He’s a dull bitter man obsessed with money.

The reasons why he is not as loved as his peers are all clearly evident in the book, but of course Michael can’t see them. The newly minted Sir David Beckham posted on social media that “he couldn’t begin to describe” his feelings as being knighted by the King of England. I can only imagine that poor, bitter, twisted Michael would find it similarly difficult to describe his feelings of jealous indignation at the sight of it. He was Messi before Messi, but for a brief period in 1998, he was also Beckham before Beckham. Reading Reboot, Owen really doesn’t seem to understand why that ceased to be.

Felipe, what did happen to Michael Owen? He never went anywhere. Nearly 30 years on he appeals to no-one, but his erstwhile international celebrity means we’re forever saddled with him.

And he’s always, unequivocally, himself.

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