Michael Owen has slammed David Beckham for ‘letting every England player down’ by getting sent off against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup and says he still resents him for it.
The former Manchester United star received his marching orders early in the second half of last-16 tie with the game finely poised at 2-2 for a silly kick on Diego Simeone.
In his upcoming book ‘Reboot’, which is being serialised by The Mirror, Owen was cut-throat in his assessment of Beckham’s actions that day in Saint-Etienne.
‘First of all, let me pre-empt what follows by saying that what David did probably wasn’t a red card offence in the first place,’ Owen said.
But because his flick-out was so childish, it also seemed so much more unnecessary. People will say it was just a mistake, but my feeling is that, if you want to win World Cups, you can’t afford to make mistakes.
‘Would we have beaten Argentina with eleven men? We’ll never know – but we were playing well enough with ten at the time. Would we have gone on to beat Holland and then Brazil and so on? We’ll never know that either.
‘All I can say is that, as I sit here now writing this book, knowing how lucky a player is to appear in one World Cup, never mind more than one, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that what David did that day hadn’t let every single one of that England team down.
‘Did he deserve the abuse he got from the press afterwards? Certainly not. What human being needs to see his or her effigy being burned? But David let us down, and I still hold some resentment about it today.’
Alan Shearer’s penalty had cancelled out Gabriel Batistuta’s early strike from the spot before Owen raced past Argentina’s defence to score that iconic goal to put England ahead.
Javier Zanetti equalised just before England could get into the sanctuary of the dressing room at half-time.
Two minutes after the break, Beckham showed his immaturity by reacting angrily to a poor challenge from Simeone.
Award winning journalist and writer who has worked as a stringer for a couple of acclaimed South Africa based German journalists, covered 3 Ugandan elections, 2008 Kenya election crisis, with interests in business and sports reporting.
