Michael James Owen (born 14 December 1979 in Chester) is an English professional footballer who plays as a striker for Manchester United.

The son of former footballer Terry Owen, Owen began his senior career at Liverpool in 1996. He progressed through the Liverpool youth team and scored on his debut in May 1997. In his first full season in the Premier League he finished as joint top scorer. He repeated the feat the following year and was Liverpool's top goal scorer from 1997–2004, in spite of a recurring hamstring injury. His first major club honours came in 2001 when Liverpool won a cup treble of the UEFA Cup, FA Cup and Football League Cup, and Owen was the recipient of the Ballon d'Or that year. He went on to score 118 goals in 216 appearances in the English Premier League for Liverpool.

Owen moved to Real Madrid for £8 million in mid-2004 but was frequently used as a substitute. In spite of this, he scored 13 goals in La Liga and had the season's highest ratio of goals scored to number of minutes played. He returned to England the following season, joining Newcastle United for £16 million. He had a promising start to the 2005–06 season but injuries largely ruled him out over the next 18 months. After his return he became team captain and was the team's top scorer for the 2007–08 season. After the final season of his four year contract, Newcastle were relegated, and Owen moved to Manchester United as a free agent.

Internationally, Owen first played for the senior England team in 1998, becoming England's youngest player and youngest goalscorer at the time. His performance at the 1998 World Cup brought him to national and international prominence and he went on to appear, and score, in Euro 2000, the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004. He is the only player to ever have scored in four major tournaments for England. He played at the 2006 World Cup but suffered an injury which took him a year to recover from. Occasionally playing as captain, he is England's seventh most-capped player and has scored a national record of 26 competitive goals, with 40 in total from 89 appearances.

Owen's long injury absence after the 2006 World Cup resulted in a dispute between FIFA and The FA and Newcastle United, and eventually resulted in an unprecedented £10m compensation award to Newcastle, and brought changes to the compensation arrangements between club and country regarding injuries sustained by contracted club players while on international duty.

Born on 14 December 1979 in Chester, Cheshire, Michael James Owen was the fourth child of Jeanette and Terry Owen. His father is a former professional footballer and played for clubs such as Chester City and Everton. Owen was introduced to football at the age of seven by his father who soon saw Michael as the most promising athlete in the family. A boyhood Everton fan, Owen attended Rector Drew Primary School in Hawarden, Wales and by the age of ten, some of the nation's leading scouts were monitoring his progress.

He later played for Deeside Primary School's team (where he scored 97 goals; beating previous record holder Ian Rush by 25 goals) and joined the youth team of Mold Alexandra, playing with the under-10s at the age of eight after a local physical education teacher, Howard Roberts, persuaded the league to allow an under-age player. Owen scored on his debut for Mold Alexandra, a 2–0 win over local rivals Bagillt. After leaving Deeside, Owen attended Hawarden High School, where he also played for the school team.

At age 13, when Owen started attending high school, he became eligible to sign a schoolboy contract with a club. He held talks with Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal, before he eventually signed for Liverpool (despite growing up as a supporter of their rivals Everton), the club that persuaded him to attend the FA's School of Excellence at Lilleshall in Shropshire at age 14. Throughout this time, he continued his studies at Hawarden High School and achieved ten GCSEs.

Liverpool signed Owen after he graduated from Lilleshall at 16, and joined the club on the Youth Training Scheme. The star of Liverpool's 1996 FA Youth Cup triumph, scoring in the final against a West Ham United team that included Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand, Owen scored prolifically as he rose rapidly through the Anfield ranks. After four months, he signed professional forms for the senior team just after his seventeenth birthday on 18 December 1996.

He made his debut for Liverpool against Wimbledon in May 1997, coming on as a substitute and scoring a goal. With an injury to Robbie Fowler, he was thrust immediately into action as a first team regular alongside the likes of newcomer Paul Ince and playmaker Steve McManaman in the following 1997–98 season. He scored his first European goal for the club against Celtic in the UEFA Cup and recorded his first professional hat-trick against Grimsby Town in the League Cup. His first Premier League hat-trick came later that season at Hillsborough against Sheffield Wednesday. Owen ended that season as a joint top scorer in the Premier League with Blackburn Rovers' Chris Sutton and Coventry City's Dion Dublin, scoring eighteen goals, and was voted the PFA Young Player of the Year by fellow professionals.