Michael Owen

MICHAEL OWEN has launched a passionate defence of his own career after being compared to Wayne Rooney on social media.

Owen, 45, has made sure everybody remembers just how good he was in his youth, replying to a question over who was better at 17 between Rooney and the former Real Madrid man.

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Fans online have been debating the topic of which breakthrough teenager was the better player, given that both Owen and Rooney burst on to the scene and impressed at such young ages.

But in reply to a post asking who was better aged 17, Owen laid out the facts as to why he thinks his early years trump Wazza’s.

He wrote on X: “At 17 I scored 18 PL goals (winning the Golden Boot), Wazza scored 6.

“At 18, I again scored 18 goals (again winning the Golden Boot and coming 4th in The Ballon d’Or), Wazza scored 9.

“In our opening 7 seasons, Wazza didn’t outscore me once (117 goals v 80). In which time I became the 2nd youngest Ballon d’Or winner ever.

“Injuries hindered me from then on while he sustained his level.

“Therefore, he’ll go down as a better player than me. But, at 17, please…”

Owen won the Ballon d’Or in 2001 – the last Brit to lift the prestigious individual award.

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While he twice won the Premier League Golden Boot as a teenager, doing it at 18 and 19 years of age to become the youngest ever recipient of the award.

Despite Owen’s claims of scoring 18 goals in the Premier League aged 17, he had actually only bagged five league goals before his 18th birthday.

He went on to score a total of 18 during the 1996/97 season, subsequently winning his first Golden Boot, but scored 13 of those goals after his 18th birthday.

His later career tailed off, with injuries meaning Owen ended his playing days with a total of 223 goals in 483 appearances.

Rooney, on the other hand, notched 313 goals in 764 appearances.

Owen recently described his “agony” at the fact people don’t remember how good he was.

Speaking on the Rio Ferdinand Presents Podcast, Owen explained: “People will have only seen me or remember me in the later years when I’m getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.

“The agony for me is that nobody remembers. Only a few people remember what I was like when I was ten and 12 and 15 and 18 and maybe up to 22.

“I was past it and on the way down by 21 or whatever.

“That’s the agony because was there another 18-year-old that was anywhere near me at 18? I was light years clear of anything in my age group, anything in England.

“You can bring the next kid and the next kid and the next kid and the next one that scores ten goals and everybody’s like: ‘Oh, it’s the next Michael Owen’.

“But I was competing against great strikers. Now there’s like four, five good strikers in the Premier League.”

Rooney vs Owen before they turned 18

Here’s a look at how Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney’s careers looked before their 18th birthdays…

MICHAEL OWEN

• Club apps: 21
• Club goals: 9
• Club assists: 5
• International apps: 0
• International apps: 0

WAYNE ROONEY

• Club apps: 46
• Club goals: 9
• Club assists: 2
• International apps: 8
• International apps: 2

IT IS probably the cringiest moment from Michael Owen’s long list.

But now he has broken his silence on the infamous “well done, he’s 13” gag from Neville Southall.

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Owen featured in a Michael Owen Soccer Skills video in 1999 where he faced a young goalkeeper at an empty Stoke City stadium.

The former England striker did his best to humiliate the 13-year-old Jamie Hutchinson, who was given goalkeeping tips from Southall.

To his credit, Hutchinson did make some saves.

But the video is remembered for Owen chipping, rounding and firing past the helpless child between the sticks – before shamelessly celebrating each finish.

The laughing ex-Liverpool man clenched his fists, ran away with his arms aloft, mocked the goalkeeper for nutmegging him and pointed to his name on the back of his shirt.

But it was his embarrassing shout of “get in there – game, set and match, Owen” that triggered Southall’s brilliant quip.

Southall said: “Well done, he’s 13,” a comment which remains a viral sensation and etched into British football heritage.

But now, 26 years on, Owen has opened up on the clip – and revealed not all was quite as it seemed because he was told to play up for the cameras.

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He told talkSPORT: “I was only a couple of years older than him myself!. It’s probably funny now.

“I got back from the World Cup in 98 and there were loads of commercial opportunities, things like that. 

“I was asked to do a soccer skills video and a soccer skills book. So I had to explain, talk through finishing, volleying, heading, whatever the skill was. Inevitably, you need a goalkeeper there.

“I never picked them and so I turned up to do the show and to talk through how I see scoring a goal and what I think in certain scenarios and whatever. 

“There was a kid in goal that I had to score past and when I scored they’re like, ‘Come on, no, you need to show a bit more animation. Like celebrate when you score, this is going on a video.'”

talkSPORT host Andy Goldstein clarified: “So people don’t know this, right?”

And Owen continued: “People just laugh at you no matter what. Then they take a little extract of anything.

“There’s loads of things like that on the internet on me.”

‘NOT EXACTLY IDEAL’

Hutchinson spoke about the viral video in 2016 and admitted he knew it would not come out too well for him.

He said: “Being the goalkeeper on a programme headlined by a striker wasn’t exactly ideal for me.

“It was made clear that it wouldn’t make good filming if the goalkeeper was saving all the shots taken by the other kids after they had been coached by Michael.”

And even Southall himself did defend Owen’s actions earlier this year.

The 92-cap Wales goalkeeper – who reunited with Hutchinson a few years ago – added: “I think he was being ironic to be fair, but I think he was enjoying himself and being ironic.

“But the poor kid, he scored a squillion goals past him and I was thinking ‘give him a break’.

“On the day, Michael was okay and he’s always okay. 

“People judge him on that and that’s not him.”

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