Without the golden boy
Simon Barnes
ENGLAND go into their final World Cup qualifying match against Greece on Saturday — and where is Michael Owen? Clutching his bum and cursing his fate. Pele. who knows a thing or two about football, said, 'Without Liverpool's golden boy, they are nothing special. You could say Owen is to England what Romario was to Brazil in 1990."
An interesting remark, not least because Brazil won the World Cup in that year. But, if England are to reach the next World Cup finals directly, they must defeat Greece. And the golden hamstring that connects that golden leg to that golden bum has been strained yet again. England must do it without Owen.
I remember seeing someone steal a family-sized bottle of Coke. This is a hard thing to palm. He had a coat over his arm, however, and swept the bottle up from the metal rack. But he made a balls of it. He caught the edge of the bottle against the rack and it made the most frightful clang. So, what did he do? He walked straight out of the shop, jacket and bottle and all. About 0.1 seconds later, everyone in the shop thought, My God, he's just stolen that bottle right from under our very noses.
That's Michael Owen. Of course he has great skill, immense pace and a first-class mind. But these are bonuses. What he has that sets him apart from the rest is that nerveless self-certainty. The bottle-stealer was under huge pressure, and yet he acted with nothing less than authority.
There is absolutely no answer to personal conviction of that intensity. It is potent stuff: tyrants, cult-leaders, murderers, artistic geniuses, saints — all are characterised by the same quality.
Owen had it that night in Munich, when England beat Germany 5-1 and Owen scored three of the goals. He had the air of a man who does not know his own limitations. and that is because he has simply never been in a situation that has made his limitations apparent.
Football is one of the most emotional of all games. Fear and certainty, resentment and joy sweep through a team like a brush fire. And Owen, Owen. burning bright, does wonders for everyone else on the pitch — most particularly for the opposition. You like to have your opposition fearful.
This is what England must do without in what promises to be a frightful night of football. England's capacity for last-minute cockups is well-known, at least to the English. The week has been full of speculation about the best players to fill that goal-scoring gap.
But perhaps the relevant question is about the player who will make the opposition fearful. England do have a few more of those. Pele wrote his words about the golden boy before England's defeat of Germany, in which David Beckham and Steven Gerrard were almost as gilded as the Golden One.
So often great English sporting events take place with the key players absent. Graham Thorpe, England's best batsman, didn't play in the Ashes series against Australia last summer. But Owen is far better, in world terms, than Thorpe. It is not sensible to talk about replacing him, because that is impossible. But who will do the job of filling the opposition with saucy doubts and fears? Who, hearing the bottle clang, will refuse to drop the bloody thing and run for safety?
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