Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen: How it feels to be an England prodigy (2024)

Published

13 June 2024

“He was just different. You just giggled at the confidence he had right from the start.”

May 2004, Sardinia.

England’s 'golden generation' are in Italy preparing for a European Championship in which they are being heavily tipped, in many parts of the media, to potentially deliver the country’s first major trophy since the World Cup in 1966.

Six years on from announcing himself at the 1998 World Cup with that goal against Argentina in Saint-Etienne, Michael Owen is gearing up to lead the England line in the opening game against France.

Owen and other high-profile Three Lions stars, including Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes, are being put through their paces by manager Sven Goran Eriksson.

Also on the field is an 18-year-old Liverpudlian, Wayne Rooney.

On paper, Owen and Rooney had countless things in common.

Six years earlier, also 18, Owen - fresh off the back of a breakthrough campaign in which he had won the Premier League’s golden boot - was in an England squad preparing for his first major tournament, the France 1998 World Cup

But, as Owen recounts in a new BBC Sport programme Rooney 2004: World at his Feet, it quickly became clear that there is more than one way to play the role of prodigy.

For Owen, it was the softly-softly approach, acutely aware of respecting the dressing-room dynamic and hierarchies.

Hierarchies meant nothing to Rooney, however. He had more of a hell or high water-type approach.

“Confident, brave, fearless... All those things,” Owen remembers 20 years later.

“Wayne just came in and in one of the first training sessions we were doing a shooting practice and he chipped the keeper.

“And as much as it's fine to do that, I think most of us were stood there thinking, 'On your first training session to chip an experienced goalkeeper!'

"That just set the ball rolling for what was to come.”

What came a few days later further underlined the dual approach of England’s strike partners.

Thursday, 13 June marks 20 years to the day since England’s opening Euro 2004 match. The opponents? Reigning world and European champions France.

As Owen’s training-ground story illuminates, Rooney embodied the ignorance and naivety of youth.

It was an ignorance mirrored in the French camp, specifically in the shape of right-back Lilian Thuram.

“I doubt how much Rooney can give to the England team,” Thuram said. “He is very young - too young for such a hard competition like this.

“The Everton player is good but he is no Pele. Rooney is not Michael Owen - he was a far better player on his debut for the English team.”

Thuram’s lack of research was to be quickly found out.

Rooney gave an all-action, no-holds barred performance that included nutmegging Zinedine Zidane, winning a penalty and, in his own words, “smashing” Thuram with an elbow.

“I just couldn't wait for the game,” Rooney remembers 20 years later. “I nutmegged Zidane and I remember texting my mate after the game, saying 'I just megged Zizou'.

“I remember him (Thuram) doing an interview saying he didn’t know who I was and that stuck with me and I remember thinking, 'Right, OK… Wait for this game, because if I get a chance, I'm going to smash you'.

“Around that time, I felt invincible like when you are on a fruit machine, you get the invincible level and just keep going, you can't die. That's what I felt like at that time.”

Owen, naturally more quiet and reserved, may not relate to Rooney’s penchant for a training-ground chip but he can recognise those feelings of invincibility.

“I can relate to his mindset,” Owen tells BBC Sport.

“When I was 18, I thought I could rule the world. I played in the World Cup, played against Argentina, wouldn't have had a clue about the opposition, couldn't name that team.

“I didn't want to watch any videos (of the opposition). Just give me the ball and I'll be fine.

“You just think that you're the best player as soon as you cross over the line. You’ve never had any doubts or setbacks in your life.

“You get into the England team and you find that easy as well. And it just feels so normal.

"At Euro 2004, Wayne and I used to have the odd chat - I could just see myself in him, in terms of what I had done not so long ago in France.”

In 1998, Owen set the precedent for Rooney, scoring against Romania in the group stage before a tournament and perhaps career-defining strike against Argentina in the round of 16.

Rooney was arguably even better in the group stages of 2004. Hard off the back of his all-action display against France, he went on to score twice in England’s second and third group games against Switzerland and Croatia.

His second goal against Croatia saw him give goalkeeper Tomislav Butina the eyes to send him the wrong way and calmly slot the ball home. Re-watching this strike in Wayne Rooney: World at his Feet, it appears to be a finish beyond his years.

Not to Owen.

“There's footballers and then there's footballers,” he said. “There's footballers that that can do a job and they'll get by.

“But then there are people that just appear and you just think 'wow'. You know they just get it. Everything about them.

"Wayne’s finishing was incredible, to give someone the eyes. These things are just ingrained in you. You can either do it or you can't.”

Owen 1998 and Rooney 2004 is a shared experience on two counts: that of a career-defining breakthrough moment and also, arguably, the zenith of their entire international careers.

They also experienced English football fever – appearing daily on the front and back pages of the newspapers.

The prodigal sons also ultimately experienced an all-too-familiar and painfully similar emotion: heartbreaking defeat in the knockouts - on penalties.

Owen scored that goal and left the field with his head held high after defeat by Argentina in the last 16, while Rooney hobbled off midway through the first half of England’s quarter-final defeat against Portugal with a broken foot.

But ultimately, their experience was the same.

Twenty years later, Owen circa 1998 remembers relating to the rampant Rooney of 2004 in every possible way.

Well, almost every way. The prodigy-cum-protege personal dynamic was a little skew-whiff - certainly where Owen was concerned.

“I almost felt in the first few games that this is the wrong way around,” Owen said.

“I was thinking 'you're supposed to be setting me up, you're the big creative player and I'm the goal scorer' and it actually went the other way.”

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