Michael Owen

 

Owen becomes a global star with sizzling strike against Argentina in 1998 World Cup.

Michael Owen's career started with a bang and ended with a whimper. Few players have risen to fame as quickly and dramatically as the former Liverpool striker, who scored 18 goals in his first full league season. He further enhanced his reputation as one of the world's most talented young players with a mesmeric individual goal against Argentina at World Cup 1998 and, in 2001, he became the first Englishman to win the Ballon d'Or since Kevin Keegan in 1979.

But Owen's impact lessened as a series of injuries derailed his career. He spent a season with Real Madrid, where he was often a substitute, before returning to England with Newcastle United. Despite a promising start to his Newcastle career, he was sidelined for 18 months because of injury. He came back from that lay-off half the player that he had been and devoid of the pace that had helped make him so effective.

Owen's unerring coolness in front of goal remained, however, and a shock move to Manchester United came in 2009. His greatest moment in a United shirt came against rivals Manchester City, when he scored a 96th-minute stoppage-time winner. But that was one of few highlights in a spell spent mainly on the substitutes' bench. Owen moved to Stoke City last year but, with his game time limited at the Britannia Stadium, he decided to call quits on his career.