Liverpool legend Michael Owen believes one attribute turned him into a Ballon d’Or winner.
Owen, who scored 158 goals in 297 appearances for Liverpool after breaking into the first team as a 17-year-old in 1997, knows a thing or two about thriving at the elite level. By the early 2000’s he was not only the face of English football, but also one of the most feared strikers in Europe.
After winning back-to-back Golden Boots and starring at the 1998 World Cup, Owen scored 24 goals in 46 games to help Liverpool win a cup treble in 2000–01. That same year he became the first Englishman since Kevin Keegan in 1979 to win the Ballon d’Or.
Speaking on Simon Jordan’s ‘Up Front’ podcast, Owen named the one characteristic that made him ‘world class’.
“The overriding feeling and view that I have about why I made it the top was my mentality.”
The former Real Madrid player explained the mentality stemmed from his father and the relationship he had with him.
“My Dad was a professional footballer, playing in the lower leagues for most of his career, and he was my hero – genuinely.
I used to follow him everywhere, he used to play golf on a Sunday. I would just love sitting in the clubhouse at the end because he would play Snooker then, and I’d see people coming up to him and say, ‘Is that your lad in the corner with his bag of crisps and can of Coke?’
And my Dad, who is not big-headed at all, I would see him saying, ‘He will be a full England international. Absolutely no question’.
That seed he planted in my head, constantly, no matter what we did, where we went, everything was a challenge.”
Owen left Liverpool for Real Madrid in 2004, but returned to England the following season with Newcastle United. After spending four seasons at St. James’ Park, the England star was left without a club and admitted that he almost joined city rivals Everton after flying to America to meet David Moyes. The Everton move didn’t materialise and Owen ended up in the red half of Manchester instead, before a final move to Stoke City in 2012.
A Ballon d’Or winner, a Galáctico and a face of English football, Owen finished his career with 262 goals in 571 appearances for club and country, and it was his mentality that got him there.
