"I remember when Real Madrid came in for me and I spoke to Carra [Jamie Carragher]," Michael Owen told in the book Ring of Fire.
"He goes, 'Mo, you’ll never play, will you? They’ve got Raúl, Ronaldo, [Fernando] Morientes and plenty of others.' I think he was taken aback by my confidence. I didn’t care. It was almost ignorance.
"I realized deep down they were great players: Ronaldo was the best in the world for a time and Raúl was the darling of Madrid. But the idea they were better than me never registered. I wasn’t bothered about them at all. The attitude was: I’m going there to knock them out of the team.
"Of course, I can admit now that other players were better than me. Then, while I was still active – in the first six or seven years – I wouldn’t have it that someone else was as good. It’s a horrible thing to say out loud because it comes across as egotistical, I realize that."
Michael Owen joined Los Blancos from Liverpool in 2004 and scored a decent 16 goals in his first season at Real Madrid but he still didn't agree to be a second-choice striker and left Santiago Bernabeu after a year.
