Michael Owen is a striker who plays for English side Manchester United. He has also been capped 89 times for England, scoring 40 goals. Owen came up through Liverpool’s youth team (even though he was a fan of Everton, where his father played) and scored in his senior debut in May 1997, at the age of 17. He soon went on to become a prolific goal scorer for Liverpool. He was the PFA Young Player of the Year in 1997-98 and European Footballer of the Year in 2001. (The only other English players to have won that award are Stanley Mathews, Bobby Charlton and Kevin Keegan.)
In the 2000-01 season Liverpool won the FA Cup, the League Cup, the UEFA Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the FA Community Shield. The huge part he played in Liverpool winning those five titles also made him (the more unofficial) World Soccer Player of the Year, a title he is the only Englishman to have received. The next three seasons Owen still scored plenty of goals and Liverpool won the 2002-03 League Cup.
In August 2004 Owen signed with Spanish club Real Madrid. Owen only spent one season in Spain before moving back to the English Premier League. Newcastle signed him for a club record fee of £16 million.
Owen’s time at Newcastle was plagued by injuries, the worst sustained when he played for his country at the 2006 FIFA World Cup. That anterior cruciate ligament injury kept him out for almost the entire 2006-07 season. Owen’s contract with Newcastle expired in June 2009 and he went on a free transfer to Manchester United. Although not normally a regular starter for United he has scored several important goals for them, including a hat-trick in a Champions League match vs Wolfsburg in December 2009.
In his first season with United they won the 2009-10 League Cup. After winning the 2010-11 Premier League Owen has signed for another year with Manchester United.