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What's the story?
Former Liverpool striker Michael Owen revealed that he felt a "dagger in the heart" the moment he realised he couldn't return to Anfield from Real Madrid in 2005.
In case you didn't know...
One of the greatest Liverpool strikers in the Premier League era, Owen played 297 games in all competitions for the Reds, scoring 158 goals in the process. He won two League Cups during his time with the Reds, along with one FA Cup, one FA Community Sheild, one UEFA Cup and one UEFA Super Cup.
Owen won the Premier League Player of the Year award in 1998 and was also the recipient of the Ballon d'Or in 2001.
The Englishman left the Merseyside club to join Real Madrid in 2004, where he spent just one season before returning to the Premier League with Newcastle United in 2005.
However, he struggled with injuries throughout his time at Newcastle and managed to make just 71 league appearances in four seasons. He moved to Manchester United in 2009 before joining Stoke City in 2012 for the final season of his career.
The heart of the matter
In his latest autobiography, Reboot: My Life, My Time, Owen revealed how he felt after knowing that he won't be able to return to Liverpool from Real Madrid in 2005.
"Right at the beginning of the 2005/06 season in Madrid (the English season had already been running for a few weeks by this stage) the President of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez, knocked on my hotel room door one day while we were preparing for a game.
"Newcastle has made a bid in the region of sixteen million pounds,’ he told me, ‘If you want to go, then you can go. If you want to stay, you can stay.’ For many reasons, my staying at Madrid really wasn’t a viable option. I would have been very lonely and Louise wouldn’t have been able to endure being away from friends and family any longer.
"‘But I want to go to Liverpool.
"I’d be being dishonest at this point if I didn’t admit that the heroics of Istanbul were weighing on my mind. As much as I was delighted for all my mates that had lifted the cup, on a personal level I wasn’t just disappointed – I was jealous.
"I know that doesn’t sound great, but that’s how it felt. Had they won it five years after I left, that would have been one thing, but the very next season? That was tough to take.
"‘That’s not possible unless they match Newcastle’s offer.
"At the time, that statement was a dagger in the heart. I was being presented with two options – neither of which I particularly fancied.
"Looking back now, Madrid’s position was perfectly understandable I suppose. Football is business after all. But for the naïve people out there who think footballers always call the shots, this is an example of a scenario where I just didn’t have a choice."
What's next?
Owen's new autobiography, Reboot: My Life, My Time, will go on sale from Thursday, September 5th.
