Twenty years ago today, Liverpool’s FA Cup final hopes are evaporating in the humidity of Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.
On their second showpiece appearance of the season at the Welsh arena, the Reds are, by the admission of everyone involved, being thoroughly outplayed by the slick machine of Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal.
Sapped by the stifling heat, energy levels depleted by the exertions of keeping the Gunners out, belief gradually diminishing, they yield in the 72nd minute as Fredrik Ljungberg scurries around Sander Westerveld and taps into the exposed net.
One-nil to Arsenal with little time left. Perhaps this, Liverpool’s 24th cup tie of the campaign, is a step too far.
But then Michael Owen, almost single-handedly, changes the course of history.
Here, in the latest chapter of our series on Liverpoolfc.com celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Reds’ 2000-01 treble, we see through the eyes of the match-winner as he scores twice in five minutes to turn the final upside down…
Owen comes into the FA Cup final in scintillating form, having netted six times in his previous three appearances – and Gerard Houllier takes every measure to ensure his No.10 can try to maintain those levels.
So, when the striker turns up at training in the build-up with a brand-new pair of boots his sponsor wants him to wear especially for the big occasion against Arsenal, the boss is quick to act on his superstitions...
“He looked at my feet and spotted I was wearing these new, different boots to what I’d been wearing in the weeks leading up. And he was adamant – absolutely adamant – I wasn’t allowed to wear them. He said that because of my form, because I’d been scoring loads of goals in the lead-up to the cup final, he just didn’t want me to change anything. I mean literally adamant, I couldn’t persuade him. So I had to phone up my boot sponsors and basically tell them I’m not going to wear these. They were paying me to do it, of course. And he was right. There’s a lot to be said about confidence, about keeping everything the same when things are going well. So I was banned from wearing my new boots, I had to wear my old, scruffy boots in the cup final.”
Boots, changed or otherwise, are a long-forgotten irrelevance come that Saturday afternoon, though, with Liverpool trailing 1-0 as the contest enters its final 10 minutes.
Owen has barely had a sniff of goal yet, the Reds overwhelmed by the power and poise of a Gunners team stuffed with generational talents, one that would canter to the league title in two of the next three seasons...
“They had so many great players. But we had beaten them in the league and we knew we could mix it with them. But we knew we were the underdogs. Going into the game, we expected them to have probably more of the ball and hoped to hit them on the counter-attack. And it played out pretty much as we expected, Arsenal had the better of the game, no question about that. But there are moments in your life when you just know. You’re in confident mood, I’d been scoring goals in the lead-up to it and I knew I would get a chance; I always got a chance, I was playing in a great team. I was always going to get a chance in front of goal.”
That chance finally arrives with 83 showing on the clock.
Substitute Gary McAllister lifts a free-kick from the left wing to the far side of the Arsenal penalty area that is cleared up into the air rather than out of the box.
Markus Babbel keeps the move alive with a headed touch that bounces towards Owen, just as the striker had planned for as he ignored the high cross and instead considered where a loose ball might land.
And when it comes his way, his predatory instinct, which would see him awarded the Ballon d’Or later in the year, hauls Liverpool back on level terms...
“It was just about a clean strike. Keeping a clean strike, keeping it down. Because it wasn’t an easy finish, it wasn’t an easy technique, just bouncing in front of me is probably one of the hardest – normally they go over the bar. I just remember I didn’t have time to think, to be honest. It was just all on instinct, swivelled and whacked it into the bottom corner. The feeling I got from that goal, or the aftermath of that goal, I’ve often sort of wondered to myself, ‘What was it? How can I bottle that?’”
As Owen and his Reds teammates run past their deflated opponents to restart the game, relief is not the primary emotion. They aren’t going to settle for just equalising. The dynamic has changed entirely.
The goalscorer is utterly convinced he will strike again at the Millennium Stadium. The question as he checks the scoreboard to see the time remaining is not ‘if’ but ‘when’...
“They had thrown everything at us and we were still in there fighting. I remember looking up at the clock and thinking, ‘Have I got time in the full 90 minutes to finish this or is it going to have to wait until extra-time?’ It was that almost out of body, knowing experience: ‘I’m going to score again, it’s just a matter of when.’ It was just weird. It was that equaliser that won it for us. Of course the second goal was the icing on the cake to actually seal the deal. But as soon as we equalised, I knew the cup was ours.”
As it happens, he and Liverpool do not have to wait long.
With Arsenal desperately trying to deny Owen’s premonition by committing players forward, Patrik Berger launches an 88th-minute counter-attack with a long pass towards the left edge of their box.
They have two covering defenders to deal with it, but suddenly there’s a bolt of gold and navy accelerating between them, reaching the ball first and, in a split-second, calculating his best route to beating David Seaman again...
“I considered coming back onto my right foot, I considered actually taking another touch closer to the goal. I just thought the angle I’m at, two players actually on my right, I’m never going to be able to cut back onto my favoured foot. All things considered at the time, it was just the right thing to do – was to shift it left, away from the two defenders, Dixon and Adams, and then strike it with my left. It was actually the perfect finish for me, because it didn’t require any intricacy, it just required a clean strike across the goalkeeper and just aim for the inside of that post. And that’s what happened.”
With three beautiful, clinical touches, Owen has turned the likelihood of heartbreak for his side into the Reds’ second major honour of the campaign.
The scenario he dreamed of as a child watching FA Cup finals, heading out into the garden at half-time to imagine scoring the winner, was now a reality. A moment of history...
“It was what I wanted to do, it was just everything. To fast-forward those emotions into winning it, and not just winning it and not just scoring the winner, but scoring two goals so late on… it was just everything I ever wanted to do. To score the winner in the FA Cup final was just a dream come true. That almost out-of-body experience. I’d been there, I’d scored loads of big goals in my career already, but this was just different. This was lifting a trophy at the end of it; this was fans; this was fellow players. Feeling that you did something to make everyone happy and proud.
“Seeing your mum and your family and the crowd, they’re just exhausted almost from the emotion of the whole day, and then seeing them back at the hotel. You get moments in life where you’ve never seen people reacting in a certain way – and it will just stick with you forever. And that FA Cup final was one of them, it was everything I’d dreamed of. And if I could live one day again that I’ve had in my life, I would rewind the clock and go straight back to that day and play Arsenal again in Cardiff.”
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