Michael Owen: Off the Record - Michael Owen

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and Puskas, two strikers who were just unbelievable, and Gento, who was the quickest No 11 he had ever seen. Today I am so proud to be wearing his No 11 shirt.’ That fine white jersey was handed to me by Alfredo Di Stefano himself, which was such a thrill.

      The intention was to find a house as soon as possible. As a family we had no wish to live in hotels – even luxury ones – any longer than we had to. That wouldn’t be fair on Gemma, our one-year-old daughter. My sister Karen had recently given birth to her second child, so my mum felt a responsibility to stay at home and help her with the demands of motherhood. But I knew both our families would be coming over to see us regularly. I knew I would have plenty of support.

      So how did I go from being a Liverpool player of thirteen years’ standing to a team-mate of David Beckham and Jonathan Woodgate in a foreign city in such a short and dramatic period? Until a few days before I left Liverpool, I had every reason to think I’d extend my contract with the club beyond May of 2005. Talks were going well, and a new Premiership season was approaching fast. I’d heard previously, through the grapevine, that I was on a list of five strikers Real Madrid were interested in but always assumed they would go for either Thierry Henry or Ruud Van Nistelrooy ahead of me. So I didn’t take too much notice of those rumours.

      Fast forward to Liverpool’s pre-season tour of America, where we were due to have another round of discussions with my existing employers. The key stage came in New York, where we played AS Roma on 3 August. It was then that Tony Stephens told me he believed there was firm interest from Real. He said there was a genuine possibility that an offer could be forthcoming, but added, ‘We can’t find out more without getting permission from Liverpool.’ I was still under contract – it had ten months left to run – and we wanted to follow the rules.

      Tony met Rick Parry, the Liverpool chief executive, and things moved quickly from there. We had been close to agreeing a deal with Rick, but this really set the cat among the pigeons. It certainly turned my head. This is Real Madrid! I was thinking. After Tony and Rick talked, we were given permission to talk to the appropriate people in Spain to find out how serious they really were. From that point on it took about ten days for the move to be signed and sealed.

      Obviously it wasn’t a foregone conclusion. I met with the new Liverpool manager, Rafael Benitez, plenty of times. I talked to Rick, too. Mr Benitez was tremendous with me. All the while he was saying: ‘I’d like to keep you, but I do understand what Real Madrid means to a player. We need to do what’s best for all parties.’ He never stood in my way. It was all very amicable.

      I told him: ‘A large percentage of me wants to stay, and if I want to be in the comfort zone it would be easy for me to put pen to paper and remain here for another few years.’

      The problem is, I’ve never been in the business of picking up money for nothing. I’ve always wanted to test myself at the highest level, and in club football there is no higher level than Real Madrid. I told Mr Benitez that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and that I couldn’t afford to turn it down.

      Rick understood my position, but was anxious that Liverpool should receive a fee to compensate them in the event of me leaving Merseyside to go abroad. The last thing the club wanted was for me to leave on a ‘Bosman’ free transfer. I’d always assured Liverpool that I wouldn’t go that way, and I did so again.

      When Rick gave us permission to talk to Real, we also knew of interest from other big Italian clubs, who were hoping to sign me on a Bosman, without a fee. But I was always adamant that I didn’t want to leave Liverpool with nothing from my move – even though I hadn’t actually cost them anything in the transfer market. I was a home-grown lad; Liverpool had always been really good to me, and we’d enjoyed a strong relationship.

      When I look at it now, if I’d had two or three years left on my contract, I don’t suppose Real Madrid would have come in for me with £25 million to put on the table. The benefit, for them, of me having only a year left on my contract, was that my price was bound to be reduced and would therefore be more appealing.

      The fact that Liverpool had a Champions League qualifier against AK Graz while the drama unfolded did complicate things. That game on 10 August came at an awkward time. It may have left a sour taste with some Liverpool fans to see me sitting on the bench for such an important match – yet the reality is that we had come to an amicable arrangement, which protected all sides.

      Had I stepped foot on the field that night in Austria, I would have been ineligible to play for Real Madrid in Europe. Obviously, they wouldn’t have wanted a striker who was cup-tied, so the deal might have fallen apart. Equally, Liverpool needed to protect the transfer fee of 12 million euros (£8 million). So there was no choice but to watch my team-mates from the bench. I really didn’t enjoy not being able to help my mates.

      Strange though it sounds, I didn’t talk to my family much when the initial interest became apparent. I kept them informed as best I could, but they didn’t know the full extent of it until the deal was quite close to being sealed. I think it hit my mum and dad quite hard. Louise was less affected. She’s more easy-going. My parents, though, were a bit anxious, to say the least. I think my dad wanted me to stay at Liverpool for at least another couple of years.

      Maybe that would have been a good solution. But if I’d signed an extension for, say, two seasons there might have been a chance that Real would not be interested in me in 2006. Life moves on so quickly. There was one opportunity staring me in the face, and it was the right time and the right place. It took my mum and dad a good couple of weeks to get their heads round it. It was an adventure for us all. A new beginning.

       1 The Goalscorers – Dad and Me

      All through my childhood I was certain I was heading for a career in football. My father Terry, an ex-professional himself, was with me every step of the way; we worked as a two-man team to turn promise into reality. As a boy, I always felt I was playing for my dad more than anyone else, to make him proud.

      I’ve lived in North Wales all my life, but I’m English by birth and by blood, though there is a Scottish branch to my dad’s family tree. There was never a possibility that I would end up playing for the country I’m happy to call home. I love the area around Hawarden where I grew up – it’s near Mold in Flintshire, only a few miles from the border with England – but it’s a fact that my birth took place in England, in the Countess of Chester Hospital.

      I entered the world at 10.20 p.m. on the night of 14 December 1979 weighing 71b 15½oz. My mum Janette worked in the family clothes shop until 7 p.m. on the night of my birth and didn’t arrive at the hospital until 8 p.m. It was all over 140 minutes later. For three of her five pregnancies the two options for maternity hospitals were Chester and Wrexham, each of which was about 10 minutes away from the family home. But Chester was more convenient, and it had the added advantage of being in the country where both my parents were born. My other two siblings were born in Liverpool and Bradford, so all the Owen children are English, though our roots have been put down outside the land I represent on the football pitch.

      My addiction to football developed in this large, happy and hard-working family environment I shared with my brothers Terry and Andrew and sisters Karen and Lesley. When people learn that my dad played professional football for 14 years, from 1966 to 1980, with Everton, Bradford City, Chester, Cambridge United, Rochdale and Port Vale, they tend to assume I took over the family business after watching endless tapes of his career, or listening to his stories about football in the old days. Not so. My dad never made a point of telling us that he was a former professional. I can tell you what teams he played for, but I can’t tell you in what order, or how many goals he scored for each club. He’s not one to bombard anyone with the minute details of his career. Nor would he insist on telling us in great detail how to play the game. There were a few old photos lying around the house, but you had to dig deep to find them. There was nothing on the walls or on prominent display elsewhere. I know what sort of person he is – quiet and quite shy – but I don’t really know what kind of footballer he was. If I hadn’t found out from my older brothers,

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