Amid raging debate on social media over who among Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen was better in their younger days, the former has siuad that he used to pretend to be the latter in his early days and used to look up to him. Owen had won the Ballon d’Or in his early years but injuries derailed his career. Roonely, on the other hand, finished as England and Manchester United’s all-time highest goalscorer
“Michael and I are very different players. I used to go out on the street and pretend to be Michael Owen – even though he played for Liverpool,” Rooney said on the latest episode of The Wayne Rooney Show on BBC.
Owen, who had played in 89 games for England and scored 40 goals before injury curtailed his career, is six years elder to Rooney. Owen won the Ballon d’Or at the age of 22 while playing for Liverpool and also played for Real Madrid, Newcastle United, Manchester United and Stoke during his career. Owen, who scored 222 goals in 486 club matches, retired at the age of 32. While Rooney won the Champions League once and five Premier League titles, Owen only won the Premier League title in his career in 2010-2011 while playing along with Rooney for United. Owen also is the sixth in England’s all-time leading scorer list with Rooney second on the list with 53 goals in 120 matches.
Owen had made his debut for England at the age of 18 in 1998 and had become England’s youngest goalscorer the same year. Rooney had made his England debut at the age of 17 years in 2003 and broke Owen’s record of the youngest ever goal scorer for England with a goal against Macedonia at the age of 17 years and 317 days the same year. Earlier Rooney had also become the youngest Premier League goalscorer at the age of 16 with a goal against Arsenal while playing for Everton.
The debate had started when Owen was asked on the Rio Ferdinand podcast about who was better between him and Rooney at the age of 17 or 18. “I saw Wazza got asked who was the best out of us at the age of 17 or 18. And I did smile. The only person you could possibly compare me to in our country is Wayne Rooney,” Owen had said on the podcast.
With the BBC putting a question about who was better between Owen and Rooney at the age of 17 on social media platform X, Owen replied with a flurry of facts through his official X account. “At 17 I scored 18 PL goals (winning the Golden Boot), Wazza (Wayne Rooney) 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 posted.
Rooney, who finished his club career with 313 club goals in 763 games for Everton, United, DC United and Derby, is also United’s all-time top goal scorer with 253 goals. The former England footballer also talked about how the two are completely different footballers.
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“I think his comments are fair. Of course, he’s going to back himself. I’d back myself. But, I’d never judge myself against Michael Owen because he’s someone I actually looked up to and had the pleasure of playing alongside [for England and Manchester United].”I completely understand what he’s saying. But we’re two completely different footballers – different styles, different techniques. Michael Owen, for a three or four-year period, was probably the best centre forward in the world. I think people do forget actually how good he was. It’s hard to argue against anyone coming up against Michael Owen then. Unfortunately, he did get his injuries and he probably couldn’t adapt his game maybe as well as I could in playing from the side or going back into midfield,” said Rooney.
Rooney and Owen played in 25 matches together for England and 27 matches together for United. Owen had joined United at the age of 29 and Rooney did talk about how it was an honour for him to play along with Owen.
“It was an honour for me to play with him. I really did look up to him when I was young and we had very similar pathways in terms of we both came into the England squad quite young and then we played together. We probably didn’t get the best out of each other when we did play alongside each other. And, actually, he assisted me, I think, more than I did him, which you’d probably think it should be the other way around,” Rooney said.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
