| Michael Owen님의 프로필Road to World Cup 2006사진블로그리스트 |  도구  도움말 |
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7월 5일 My perfect dayAway from football, my perfect day would be: get up at 8 o'clock, go and play 18 holes of golf. I'd take my suit with me and walk straight off the golf course which we have got in Chester, which is right next the race course, and go to the horses. I've done it too: our lads' day was 8 o'clock tee off, 18 holes, in by 12 o'clock, bit of lunch, walk down to the races, then after the races out into town on Saturday night after my horse has won, and have a few beers together. How often do my horses win? Well, I had one win a Chester and that is exactly what happened! And that was the best day I ever had! We went to the races and met up with my wife and my daughter there. They were all dressed in beautiful dresses, my horse won, my mates had a great time, and then it was into town. Perfect! 7월 4일 Penalty - shoot outNo matter how much you practice penalties, you just can't recreate the pressure of a shoot-out. We practiced this time, but we didn’t in 1998 and the result has been the same. I have taken two in major tournaments for England and you really can’t recreate that pressure. In training you can bend them into the top corner but when you don't know where your legs are - when you have got to look down to see your legs because you simply can’t feel them - it's totally different. No amount of training prepares you for that.
If you do practice, you're not going to do yourself any harm so if it does give you that extra confidence then I suppose it is worth doing but I am not sure it makes much difference. You can never remember what you did in training when you're on the pitch. Often the best players on the training pitch are the worst players in the team when it matters too - and what happens if you miss one in training? Your confidence will be shot to bits and maybe you're best not to take one at all. It depends how your mind works, I suppose.
The penalty shoot-out is truly nerve-wracking. You have got ten seconds before you put that ball down on the spot and it plays with your mind. You have to try not to think about it because there are so many questions. You can be there wondering: My team-mates are stood behind me, what are they doing? How many people are watching this? How many pubs and clubs and houses? What's the manager going to think if I score? What's he going to think if I miss? What will happen to me if I miss? You could spend all night on the questions but you have got ten seconds to just block everything out and try to focus on scoring a goal. It is more nerve wracking than anything else in the game. 6월 22일 Michael Owen - June 22nd 2006I am absolutely devastated to have been ruled out of the world cup, but I think England can still win the competition and I’ll be their number one fan from now on.
I had a scan on my knee on the morning after the game against Sweden and it confirmed my worst fears. When I fell to the turf the pain in my knee was so bad that I knew that it was something serious.
The tests have shown that I have ruptured my cruciate ligament and it looks like I could be out of action for the rest of the year, not just the world cup.
Naturally, I am heart broken. I was looking forward to the world cup so much and had worked so hard to be fit. The rest of the England squad were gutted to hear the news but when I left the camp I wished them luck and told them they can go on and win the tournament. I’ll be right behind them
In fact I hope to be in Berlin on July 9 to collect my winner’s medal with the rest of the lads.
For me now, it’s the long road back to recovery and the wait for the swelling to go down. I’m back in the UK now and scheduled to meet with the Newcastle FC medical staff to examine the extent of the injury and work out the best plan going forward.
I’ll keep in touch with MSN as any news develops. 6월 16일 Michael Owen - June 16th 2006It's important for us to have got off to a good start and won our opening two games and I am sure we will play better in coming matches. It is very difficult against teams that come to defend against you: I think we will perform better against better sides, like Italy, Spain or Brazil.
Personally, I wouldn't say I've played the best two games of my career but I'm quite content. I'm not the type of player, like Wayne Rooney, who is always involved even when we are playing badly: my job is to get on the end of crosses. I've never shirked responsibility and if I'm given chances then I'm sure I'll score goals. I've only had one chance in the last two games, plus a rebound that was blocked - and I kicked myself because I didn't score it. But I'm still a decent finisher - I won't lose that. I'm feeling fine and feel like I'm playing well. I've been training well and scoring goals in training, so I'm not worried in the slightest.
If the manager wants to bring me off and put Wayne Rooney on, as he did against Trinidad, then that's his decision. I'm not worried about it. If I'm sat on the bench, I'm sat on the bench. I've been on the bench in my career before and if the manager thinks it is the right thing, he'll do it. That's football. We've got 23 players.
It was good to see Wayne back. He's been with us for quite a while and has been training as normal. He's been kicking his heels a bit, so it was nice to see him on the pitch. Hopefully now he'll get fully match fit and we'll see the best of him later on in the tournament. Michael Owen - June 16th 2006At the world cup, as has been the case this time in Baden-Baden, the England team is invariably based in a small town, miles from anything. There's England and the next closest team might be 100 miles away so the whole of the local area gets behind you. Local kids come to the hotel to meet the players and become honorary English fans. That's nice but because it gets really built up around you, it also increases the sense of being enclosed by it, engulfed by it all. . We literally train, eat the right things and just pass the time as best we can - some play on their computer, some play cards, or whatever.
You try to pass the time as best you can but basically we're just preparing ourselves for each game. That preparation is always so important that you have to do it properly. It can be torturous, although it depends what kind of person you are. I have been brought up in a big family and I like having people around. If everyone is quietly passing the time in their rooms playing on their computer or reading then I get really bored. But if everyone is in the games room playing cards or pool, or if everyone is in the same television room, watching the match, shouting and bantering with each other, then I'm fine. Michael Owen - June 16th 2006The 1998 world cup changed my life forever and created a huge level of interest in me, which was a bit strange. I did some adverts and so on but there were things I just didn’t want to do, things that didn’t suit me. I'm not interested in being a celebrity and only did things that fitted my image and personality. I'm fairly normal really: I'm alright when I am with they lads but I am quite shy and I can’t imagine anything worse than when I have retired still getting chased around or people asking: "What's your son doing? What's your daughter doing?" Things like that don’t interest me. When I retire I want to retire properly; I don’t want to be famous.
I can have a laugh with anyone in the dressing room, which is where I really let my hair down, or go out and get drunk like anyone else. I am not whiter than white. I'm not the perfect man. And you start to think: "who cares?" I want people to think I'm a decent fellah, sure, but I don’t need them to think I'm perfect and I don’t want to have worry about that. I'd rather just be myself. 6월 13일 Michael Owen - June 13th 2006Our aim is of course to win the world cup and I think we have a group of players who can achieve that at last, but let's not get carried away with us, us, us. I'm sure Italy, Spain and Portugal wonder why they haven't been winning it either. There's only one winner every four years. We're right in thinking we have a chance, but so are eight or nine other teams. A lot of people think we've got a divine right to win because this is our best team for years, but football doesn't work like that. We need to change the perception that we are serial losers. Michael Owen - June 13th 2006If you look at football over the last 50 years, there has been a gradual decrease in goals and you don't see too many 10-0s these days, but two, three or four goals per game is great. when you look at our squad I'm sure there's plenty of goals in it. We have some midfield players who are fantastic at getting forward to score. Stevie Gerrard doesn't even need to get forward - he's amazing and can stick them in from midfield like he did in the FA Cup final. He and Frank Lampard are both in double figures for the season, David Beckham and Joe Cole score goals and Peter Crouch is on a nice run.
Obviously, I haven't played as many games this season because of my injury, but I'm content. I'm not the only player to have suffered a broken foot and I know I can perform at this level. My scoring record shows no sign of slacking: I only played a handful of games for Newcastle this year and scored goals, the season before I scored plenty of goals in Madrid, and I scored against Jamaica and two against Argentina. I'm confident that can continue in Germany. I was asked the other day who's going to be top scorer. I want to do well, I want the team to do well, and if it can’t be me, I would love it to be Wayne Rooney or Peter Crouch. 6월 9일 Michael Owen - June 9th 2006The first world cup I remember as a kid was 1990 in Italy. Then I watched 1994 on telly at home, which was nowhere near as good. It's never the same if England aren’t competing. If England aren’t in it, I'll support the home nations - and in 1994 I enjoyed watching Ireland - but it’s not the same. Frankly, it was a miserable time in the USA. Since then, I have been a lot closer to the major tournaments. I went to Euro96 as a supporter and because I was playing with the England youth team I got tickets to go and watch the England-Scotland game at Wembley, when I was 16 or 17. I was in the reserves at Liverpool at the time and I was really starting to think that I could make a name for myself in the game. It was very exciting to be watching that and imagining myself there. Mind you, I never imagined I would become part of it all so quickly of course.
Looking back on 1990, what I most remember was the sheer excitement of everything: England score a goal and you look out onto the street and you can see people running round in their front rooms and you go down the road and the pubs are all jam packed. The whole buzz of the country is unbelievable there's nothing like the buzz of the country during a world cup. The cars are all full of England flags and you see pictures of London in Trafalgar square and hundreds of people diving in the water. The whole country is in party mood. Until we get knocked out, of course. And then it’s back to work, back to depression. Imagine if we won it this year. People would be in party mood forever! 6월 6일 Michael Owen - June 6th 2006My game has changed over the years. In my first full game for Liverpool against Sheffield Wednesday, I had cramp in every muscle in my body after half an hour. When you get older you maintain your body - you can go through a game and be as strong in the last minute as the first - but when you're a kid you want to run everywhere and get every ball, which is exactly what I did. I was so excited to be in the first team that I probably did twice as much running as I should have and I was dead for three or four days after. I couldn't move my legs and I was only a young lad. I was going hell for leather and something has got to give. You have to learn to manage your efforts. Then there was the injury. If I had just come straight back I might have carried on playing the same way, but after a year or two of little injuries, I was conscious of it and that altered things, so my game changed. I couldn’t say how many sprints I have to produce per game now because it depends on the nature of the opposition and how the team is playing. If your team isn’t playing well, you don't see the ball. That's the thing about strikers and goalkeepers: you can either be called on constantly or get bored. You can get selfish and come back into to midfield to get the ball but you're not really doing your team any favours. That is where I have evolved as a player; I'd like to think I have become a bit more intelligent. 6월 1일 Michael Owen - June 1st 2006The broken metatarsal I suffered this season is not the only injury I have had. A few years ago I had recurrent problems with my hamstring. I had one big injury that kept me out for four months and over the following two years I had a series of minor ones, related to that, which kept me out for two or three weeks at a time. At one stage I thought it was going to effect my whole career; it had been going on for two years and I was starting to wonder if there was something genetically wrong with me. I had to get my head round that and make sure I put in the work to get back to where I had been. Rehab didn't go well; Liverpool lost their physio at the end of the season and that was exactly the time when I was injured, so I didn't have any real rehabilitation for a couple of months. Although the muscle healed ok in terms of the injury, it got smaller and smaller, weaker and weaker. My hamstring was only half as strong as it should have been and that effected my game. So did the psychological effects: after a year or two of struggling I became conscious of the injury and the risks; no matter who you are, if an injury keeps happening, you're nervous. It was constant mind games really. For two years, I was battling with my mind more than anything else, but now I am ok. And I am confident that the metatarsal won't have the same lasting effects; muscle injuries have a tendency to recur; broken bones don't. 5월 30일 Michael Owen - May 30th 2006It was disappointing to lose the England B friendly against Belarus but better to lose now than when it really matters in the World Cup. Besides, I thought there were some positive signs. In the first half, we were sharp and created a lot of decent chances. The wide men in particular looked very lively and delivered a lot of balls into the box. Aaron Lennon was very impressive - he was quick, brave and really got forward. The second half was very different, however. Our passing was sloppy, we gave the ball away far too much - especially in the middle of the field - and when you're relying on shots from 30 yards it's a sign that things aren’t going well. We need to sort that out, but there is time and, of course, there are still a lot of very good players to come back into the team.
It was an important game for Theo Walcott. I'm sure he would have been very nervous beforehand but hopefully he feels more settled now. He's been with the lads for a while, he looks comfortable and getting a game under his belt will help. I thought he looked lively. He came on and ran at them straight away and had a great shot from distance, but it is hard to judge any striker when the team isn’t creating much. If you get more of the ball you can show more; we didn’t give Theo much of a chance. As for my foot, it feels fine. I knew it would. There's always going to be a bit of rustiness, but I have been training perfectly for a few weeks now and I was confident everything was going to be ok. Hopefully, it's onwards and upwards from now. 5월 25일 Remembering 98With all the talk about Theo Walcott making the England squad, people have inevitably asked me about my experience of going the 1998 World Cup as a teenager. I must confess, it was strange; it crept up on me a bit, like a growing reality. A few months before it was just a distant dream, four or five months before it was a possibility and maybe a month before it was virtually a certainty that I was going to go. In that sense it was different to Theo's experience, but I was still going as a squad player not a starter. I knew as a striker that whenever we needed a goal as a last resort I might get a chance but I never expected it to turn out the way it did.
To get a chance against Tunisia was fantastic but when to come on at 2-0 with the game is not ideal. The bottom line was that I wanted to get in the team, not just go to the World Cup. The next game was a real opportunity at one-nil down against Romania to come on when it matters. I hit the post and then scored a goal, so I managed to get a place in the team for the Colombia game and, well, everyone knows about the Argentina game, don't they?
Much as I was disappointed that we had been knocked out, I had mixed feelings afterwards. If I did the same now, I would be disappointed but when you are a youngster coming through and you desperately want to be a professional footballer and be a regular in the England team, there is excitement there too. As a kid, it is perhaps a bit more individual, especially when you're not in the team - or not sure that you will be. Once you get in the team, it's more about the team, but any substitute will tell you the same: when you're on the bench, you're just itching to get involved. You want the team to do well but you need an opportunity. It sounds awful because you don’t wish any harm at all upon your team-mates but you do want a chance. Then you have to take it: if I hadn’t have taken my chance in those twenty minutes against Romania - which was my acid test - people wouldn’t be talking about Argentina. 5월 12일 New England BossThe general feeling in England was that the national team manager should be an Englishman if possible and I think Steve McClaren is a good choice. He has a great record, having worked his way through as a coach at Oxford, Derby and Manchester United before making the successful transition to manager with Middlesbrough. He has worked with the England team for a number of years, has impressed everyone and is a popular choice amongst the players. He has been responsible for much of our training and I expect him to remain hands-on now that he has moved up from England coach to England boss - I don’t expect him to take a step back from the training pitch. He's a very active coach who takes interesting sessions and is capable of having a laugh with the players. Training sessions with Steve are always enjoyable and you feel like you can improve when you work with him. He talks to the players a lot and listens too - he's a good communicator.
The continuity is positive as well. It's not as if we need to fix anything - there's nothing broken with England. The new boss will have his own ideas, I am sure, but he will also try to just keep the ball rolling. We have a good team and a good set-up: we don't need any radical changes. He also knows that the England manager's job is not a normal job - he knows the pressures, he has seen it all before from the inside, he knows the FA, so it won't catch him by surprise. I think his appointment is a very good move. 5월 8일 Injury updateMy foot is fine. I finished the game against Birmingham - my first game back since breaking my Metatarsal in December - with a bit of discomfort but I have been given the all clear. Everything was perfect for ten minutes or so but then I started to notice an ache in my foot and after the game it throbbed for about half an hour. I'm not worried about it now, though. I have spoken to countless physios, as well as players who have had the same injury, and they all reassured me that some discomfort is normal when you go back to playing. I also saw the surgeon the following day and had some X-Rays done, which revealed that the bone is fine. I just have to grit my teeth and get on with it; the pain will go after a while. It wasn't a serious pain either - there were no cracks and no crunches in my foot, it was just an ache. The fracture is fine and the screw is in place still. In fact, part of the irritation is just a case of getting used to having a foreign body in my foot. I am clear of any major worries and there is no rush for me to get back. There is plenty of time still and I will be fine for the world cup. 4월 28일 Michael Owen - April 28th 2006Although I was back in the squad last weekend, I didn’t play. This weekend, I hope I can. I will start on the bench but there is a good chance of me getting half an hour. I have been training with the rest of the lads all week and doing everything they have been doing and it all looks fine. I can do everything - passing, shooting, tackling - the lot.
I haven’t yet spoken to Sven but I have no worries at all about the world cup. It is six weeks away still, so there is no mad panic. I need to get the sharpness back and the feel for the ball but apart from that I am ready. I would hope to have that feel for the ball back in a matter of days, let alone six weeks, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Everything has gone exactly as planned from the point of that second operation onwards and now just need to make sure I don’t do anything stupid, like playing 90 minutes straight away. I also have to keep my fingers crossed that I don’t get any other injuries now, because when you first come back you are susceptible. In that sense, my hamstring, my calf, my thigh, anything, is more of a worry than the metatarsal. As far as the toe is concerned, everything is perfect. 4월 19일 Michael Owen - April 19th 2006What has changed at Arsenal? To be honest, I suspect that nothing obvious has changed. They'll still be working in the same way as they always were. I think it's more about confidence, about their mental outlook. If you don’t play well in the Premiership, Europe gives you another chance, a release from those pressures, and a clean slate. Then, if you win one you start to believe you can win again and you progress from there. It is not a surprise, really: Liverpool won the Champions League last year and weren't even in the top four in the league. It is very hard to keep it up on both fronts when there is so much quality around.
I don’t think it is deliberate in the sense that you choose a competition but subconsciously maybe you get that little bit of extra momentum going in one rather than the other. I don’t know if it really is easier in Europe because of the physical aggression of the play not suiting Arsenal but if people keep telling you that, then you start to believe it and somewhere in your head that alters the way you approach games. The chance of winning something gives you that extra push too; you can see the prize and so, almost without meaning to, you give it that extra 2%. I believe a lot in the mental side of the game. You're born with your body and if you can run fast, you're lucky, if you are strong, you're lucky, but once it's done, it’s done. You have to work with what you have got and 99% of football is in the brain after that. 4월 18일 Michael Owen - April 18th 2006I think Arsenal have a great chance in the Champions League. The have hit form at just the right time, they don’t concede many goals and they have some fantastic players. I played against Villarreal during my time in Spain and although they are a strong side that are hard to beat but when you look at the semi-finalists Arsenal wouldn’t swap that tie for anything. You would choose Villarreal over Milan or Barcelona. This is a great opportunity for Arsenal to get to the final.
Villarreal are very good at home and Arsenal will have to be careful, but they should also see their trip to Spain as an opportunity. The flip side of that of course, is that they have to be aware that Villarreal will feel the same way about their visit to Highbury. Football is not what it used to be ten or twenty years ago when you would go away and play for 0-0, knowing that you would batter them at home. That used to be the Liverpool way, but these days the overall standard is much higher. Teams are more aware tactically and with so many sides much more adept at playing on the break, the away game is more of an opportunity - so often the away goal makes the difference. Arsenal have to be aware of that in the first leg and have to be cautious of conceding. In the second leg of course, they know they have a chance of an away goal. I think Arsenal look well placed to go through. 4월 13일 Michael Owen - April 13th 2006Now that Alan Shearer has announced that he will not carry on at Newcastle next year, it looks like he will take some time off before going into management. People have asked me if I would like to be a coach but I can't see myself following that path. You only see the nice things on telly, the good bits of being a manager, when in fact there's a lot more to it than that. Being a manager is not an easy job at all. There's too much pressure and so many little details that you have to deal with.
These days it's even harder than it used to be. In the past you maybe just had to pick the team, now you have to motivate players from all over the world who earn very big salaries, and you have to deal with a far bigger squad - you're talking 30 players or more now whereas it used to be 15 or so. There are issues like rotation to think about that never used to exist. There are so many commitments than come with management these days and it can be hard to motivate payers. There used to be an automatic sense of team spirit that maybe isn’t there any more. It's a much, much bigger job than it was and I doubt I'll become a manager. I don’t think I am as mad as Alan. 4월 11일 Michael Owen - April 11th 2006Ask any footballer and he will tell you the same thing: injuries are part of the game. It's not easy but it is something you have to accept and I am normally quite good at dealing with it. When I broke my foot at Spurs, I was sitting on the treatment table half an hour or so later and I had already come to terms with it. So long as I know what the situation is and when I am going to be back, then I am fine. The problem then is when you don't make it - and that is what I have found difficult recently, because of the set-backs.
If you give me a date I am ok; I can be on the treadmill every day working towards it - you've got a day circled in the calendar and that gives you a target. The problem this time has been that I haven’t been fit when I thought I would be. If things had gone to plan I would be playing now but I am not and that is frustrating. I'm not letting it get me down, though. I have new targets and, as far as the world cup is concerned, I'm not looking at the clock - I am confident of making it. I am, though, looking at the clock for Newcastle, and I'm still hopeful of playing for them before the season is out. |
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