The metamorphosis of Michael Owen from child prodigy to fledgling starlet is all but complete. Confirmation came when, as the shadows cast by Euro 96 began to fade, Liverpool moved smartly to pick one of the tournament's outstanding contributors, the Czech Republic forward Patrik Berger.
After several weeks of negotiation, a deal was almost brokered - Berger was happy to board the Premiership gravy train and his club, Borussia Dortmund, were happy with the agreed fee. And then? Shortly before pen was applied to paper, the German champions' general manager, Michael Maier, asked politely: "Could we have Michael Owen as part of this package?" Liverpool's vice-chairman, Peter Robinson, still smiles when he recalls the moment. "I was negotiating the Berger deal when I was asked to consider letting Michael move in the opposite direction," he recalls.
"I was absolutely amazed that they had even heard of him, but they said they had been told much about a promising youngster on our books." At that point, Owen was just 16 years old, still some weeks away from signing full professional terms at the Merseyside club and had never been anywhere near senior football. And yet, the word was out. After Ian Rush and Robbie Fowler, Liverpool had unearthed another rare gem. It almost seemed unfair.
"He is already a fine footballer and I'm doing no more than stating the obvious when I say he has the potential to go on to be the very best at what he does," says Rush, now playing out, at Newcastle United, the final days of a career which Owen would give his milk teeth to emulate. "Everything is going for the lad at the moment, everything he touches turns to gold. The problem is - and it is a problem all young players come up against - it won't always run so smoothly for him.
"The time will come when the level of expectation is so very high that he will slip below the standards he has set for himself. It is how he reacts at that point that matters, that may determine how far he goes in the sport. In football, people do tend to build you up and then take great pleasure in knocking you back down again," he adds. Rush's sense of caution may not be given house room beneath the roof which Owen shares with his family in Hawarden, an unassuming village just across the Welsh border from affluent Chester. Unlike Rush, who endured a painfully shy adolescence, Owen is a young man almost drowning in a sea of self-confidence.
He is content with where he has been so far, knows precisely where it is he wants to go and, like all teenagers, tends to give the distinct impression that he is both invulnerable and immortal. Earlier in the season, shortly after he had agreed a contract making him British football's highest-paid teenager, Owen was asked about his long-term international ambitions. It was, actually, a question designed to prompt polite conversation more than elicit a meaningful response.
Even though he has already represented England at under-18 level and twice trained with Glen Hoddle's full squad, Owen's response was succinct in its honesty and its clarity. "I'd like to believe that Glenn will give me a chance in one of the friendlies leading up to next summer's World Cup Finals; I don't think I would let anyone down," said Owen, who was yesterday called into the England under-21 squad for the first time.
Owen's father, Terry, by comparison a journeyman footballer with Everton, Bradford City and Chester City, was not at all surprised by the single-mindedness and purpose which was held within his son's response.
"Nothing fazes him at all," he says. "Pressure? He thrives on it. If you told him he was going to play for the England senior side tomorrow, he'd have no problems with that at all." In truth, Owen has always been a child with an almost callous disregard for the natural order of things. At the age of eight, he was selected for the Deeside Primary Schools' team. At nine, he was captain. At 10, he smashed Rush's 20-year scoring record for the team by finding the target 92 times in one season.
"This is all I have ever wanted to do," says Owen. "I think a lot of my mates expected me to go down this path because they knew I was a decent footballer. "Ever since I first kicked a football about, I've thought of little else but playing professionally. Of course, it is also what my dad wanted for me," he adds.
With Fowler certain to return against Manchester United today after completing a three-game suspension, Owen - if he plays - will nudge out the celebrated German international Karlheinz Riedle. Riedle would be disappointed but, perhaps, not too surprised. "To be honest, I had never even heard of Michael when I joined Liverpool in the summer, but now I know what many people know - he is a great player," said Riedle.
