Scouse wits fail to realise life would be a lot less wonderful without Owen
By Martin Samuel
THAT famous Scouse sense of humour clearly does not find room for irony. “Where were you in Istanbul?” the Kop asked of Michael Owen on Boxing Day. Don’t they get it? He was there all right. He was there because they were there, and because they could not have been there without him.
He was there because in the seven years he played for the club, his 158 goals helped to bring three domestic cups, one leading European trophy, five top-four finishes and two Champions League campaigns, therefore ensuring Liverpool maintained their reputation as a football club of significance.
Who dragged Liverpool to Istanbul? Steven Gerrard and Rafael Benítez: men who would not have been anywhere near the club in May 2005 were it not for Owen’s contribution between 1997 and 2004.
Owen’s legacy is that in the latter half of the 15 years spanning their last League Championship win and this year’s Champions League triumph, he prevented his club from becoming a museum exhibit. In the seven years preceding Owen’s emergence, Liverpool managed two finishes in the top three. They were one of a number (a third of the top-three finishers in the past 15 seasons are not even in the Premiership now — see bottom of page to find out who they are): a great club trading on a proud tradition, with fine individual players but little substance. In that period Liverpool won two trophies, the 1992 FA Cup and 1995 League Cup, neither against Premier League opposition.
Then Owen arrived; and while it is true that Liverpool’s final ascent to the summit occurred in his absence, what was cruelly forgotten is that without him, the club would still be at base camp tapping up Sherpas.
What the churlish souls booing and taunting Owen at Anfield required was not just history revision, but a revelation of the kind the George Bailey character receives in Frank Capra’s ultimate Christmas film, It’s a Wonderful Life. On the brink of suicide, Bailey is visited by a novice angel, Clarence, and shown what life would have been like for his loved ones had he never been born. Those now rounding with a smug vindictiveness on Owen perhaps need a visitation to remind them of what last year would have brought forth at Anfield had a certain teenager signed for, say, Everton in 1996 instead. “Strange, isn’t it,” George Bailey discovers. “Each man’s life touches so many other lives, and when he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?” Liverpool’s crowing thousands dare not contemplate the despair of an Owen-less existence.
Start with the best player. Does anybody seriously believe Gerrard would still be at Liverpool were it not for his friend who scored at the rate of two goals every three games? Take Owen out of the equation, with the resulting descent into mid-table mediocrity, and he would have been gone long before Roman Abramovich came calling, perhaps to Manchester United. Gerrard may now say he would never move to Old Trafford, but that is a far easier call to make when the difference is one or two league places.
Throughout the time when Gerrard was in demand, it was Owen’s cutting edge that maintained Liverpool’s presence near the top of the table and, in turn, Gerrard’s happiness. This tied him to the club by making a move to a more powerful rival less attractive.
Had Liverpool been looking up at United from somewhere near Middlesbrough, as they would surely have been without Owen, Sir Alex Ferguson might have secured the natural successor to Roy Keane long ago. Impossible? Consider this. When Leeds United were flying high and in the Champions League, Alan Smith also boldly stated his hatred for all things Mancunian red, before relegation swiftly cured his aversion. Liverpool minus Owen may not have fallen that far, but a player of Gerrard’s talent and ambition could not have trod water for more than two or three seasons.
So, where was Owen in Istanbul? Well, when Gerrard turned the game around after half-time, he was the angel on his shoulder, the one that had brought him to the place. No Michael, no Stevie G. No Stevie G, no trophy. In fact, no Stevie G, no Istanbul, considering his 86th-minute goal against Olympiacos was all that hauled Liverpool through the group stage. In fact, would Gerrard even have been around for the treble cup win in 2001 considering he was an established international by that time? No matter. Without Owen, there would have been no treble.
How good is his record (158 goals in 267 starts in European and domestic matches)? Put it like this: in equivalent competitions, Peter Crouch has been credited with two in 19 starts. At that rate, if he was to play 60 games a season, it would take him 25 years to amass as many, sometime during the 2030-31 season, aged 50. Owen did it in seven seasons, shortly after his 24th birthday.
The other hero of Istanbul? Rafa the gaffer. The coach who guided a team that lost to Birmingham City home and away through terrain that included a stretch of matches against Juventus, Chelsea and AC Milan. He came to Liverpool from Valencia, the reigning Spanish champions. Would that switch have happened if all Rick Parry, the chief executive, had to clinch the deal was a scrapbook of photographs from the Seventies and Eighties?
The Liverpool name will always conjure special memories in men of a certain age, but so does Nottingham Forest and a top coach does not quit his job to be impressed by fading pictures of a dead legend and his team, parading a trophy in flares. He notes potential and possibilities. The only reason Liverpool possessed either in 2004 was because Owen’s goals had helped to keep Liverpool among Europe’s leading players, with strong individual squad members and experience in top competitions.
Benítez did not join because of what Liverpool were in the days of Shankly and Paisley, but for what they could be after seven years kept buoyant by one of the world’s greatest goalscorers. So no Owen, no Rafa. And no Rafa, no Istanbul, because however freakish or fortuitous events on the night, Benítez’s greatest achievement was taking his team there. And he would not have been around to do it had Owen not made Liverpool viable.
As usual, the airwaves have been full of justification these past 24 hours. Owen messed the club around over his contract, Owen got the best deal he could by going to Real Madrid, Owen always cared more about England, Owen snubbed Liverpool for Newcastle United, Owen was disloyal. Baseless rubbish, all of it.
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