Michael Owen revealed that he resented two of his former England teammates after their mistakes at the World Cup.
Owen, who became England’s youngest World Cup goalscorer ever in 1998, went on to also play in the 2002 and 2006 iterations of the tournament but never made it past the quarter-finals.
The former Liverpool, Real Madrid and Manchester United striker, who scored 40 goals for the Three Lions, admitted he reserves a "grudge" for two former team-mates whose mistakes led to England's elimination in 1998.
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Owen named David Beckham and Paul Ince as two players he resents, with the former sent off for kicking out at Diego Simeone and the latter missing a penalty in the 4-3 shoot-out loss in the round-of-16 match against Argentina.
Strangely, Owen did not mention David Batty who also had England's last spot-kick saved that year.
Owen told William Hill's Up Front with Simon Jordan podcast: “Firstly, I don't believe David Beckham's kick out at Diego Simeone should've been a red card, but that is irrelevant. He made a mistake and that is where my resentment lies.
“For a lot of players you only get one shot at a World Cup, and he made a big mistake – he would admit that. You could say that it contributed to us being knocked out and that is a big thing.
“You can resent a lot of things if you use that word, and I do resent a lot of things. Paul Ince missed a penalty and I resent him choosing to shoot the ball one way instead of the other, in the same way, I resent Beckham making the decision to kick out at Simeone.
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“I resent his actions for all manner of reasons. It was a mistake that only he made and it makes you think that if he hadn't done it, we could have beaten Argentina. I'm absolutely convinced that we would've beaten them with 11 men because we were the better team. We had an unbelievable team so of course I think to myself what could have been.
“England have a history of self-imploding. You have the Beckham red card and then you have the situation where Wayne Rooney stamped on Ricardo Carvalho. It makes you think that a lot of times when we have gone out of tournaments, it’s not actually always for footballing reasons. We almost shoot ourselves in the foot.
“I regularly go to bed wondering how we never won something with England, given the quality of some of the teams that we had.”
Featured Image Credit: Getty/BT sportTopics: Football, Michael Owen, England, David Beckham, Fan Reactions