Topics: Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney, Ronaldo Nazario, Football, Premier League, Ballon d'Or, Liverpool, Spotlight
Michael Owen has named the one player who he thinks was better than Wayne Rooney and Lamine Yamal during their teenage years.
Owen, now 45, burst onto the scene as a 17-year-old scoring on his Liverpool debut against Wimbledon in May 1997.
The following season, he won the Premier League Golden Boot – shared with Chris Sutton and Dion Dublin - with 18 league goals before going to repeat the feat during the 1998/99 campaign - on that occasion sharing the gong with Dwight Yorke and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, again with 18 strikes.
While still just 22, Owen won the 2001 Ballon d’Or – becoming the second-youngest to pick up the award at the time – before going on to sign for Real Madrid in 2004.
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By his own admission, Owen was one of the best teenagers to have ever graced the English top-flight and recently claimed that Rooney is “the only person you could possibly compare” to him at 17 and 18 years of age – although the Chester-born striker insisted that he still had the edge over the Liverpudlian.
In an X post, Owen doubled down on his stance when referring to the fact he scored 18 goals in consecutive seasons at 17 and 18 while Rooney registered just six and nine.
Rooney then responded by saying “I think his [Owen’s] comments are fair” before adding that both men are going to “back” themselves in the debate.
Rooney scored 30 goals in the Premier League before turning 20, while Owen registered 40.
But aside from the English duo, who else does Owen think deserves to be in the conversation about the best teenagers of all time?
Well, SPORTbible, on behalf of Casino.co.uk, asked him exactly that, and the former England forward was quick to name one World Cup winner above the rest.
“When you have that type of debate, you need to look purely at the players at a young age and try to forget what they’ve done for the rest of their career,” Owen said.
“You could have some who went on to be good players rather than great, alongside a few Ballon d’Or winners.
“They're in the question purely based on what they’ve done at 17, 18, 19. That really narrows down the type of player or the players that you can bring into the equation.”
The 45-year-old then homed in on Ronaldo Nazario – or R9 - describing him as a “total phenomenon”.
Owen added: “He was the youngest Ballon d'Or winner ever. He would probably strike me as the best teenager I've ever seen.
“Yeah, I think I'm pretty confident with that answer.”
Ronaldo, now 49, won his first Ballon d’Or at 21 in 1997 while at Inter Milan before winning the award again in 2002.
The 2002 World Cup winner went on to represent Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan and Corinthians, but, like Owen, sustained several injuries which stopped him from reaching his full potential.
Ronaldo is also arguably the greatest player never to win the Champions League and is widely remembered as one of the greatest Brazilians of all time.
