Best under-the-radar sports meme: The Michael Owen Brochure

Recently England’s oft-injured, one time soccer wunderkind Michael Owen was recently signed by Manchester United in a surprising move. Never living up to the lofty expectations cast on him since puberty, Owen has bounced around and been largely ineffective at his stops at Real Madrid and Newcastle. Nobody can dispute his talent as a goal scorer, but Michael Owen simply cannot stay on the field. Which is one reason his deal with Man U is such a surprise… until you check out the unintentionally hilarious brochure he made to market himself to clubs, which obviously prompted Sir Alex Ferguson to take a chance on Owen. Above is my favorite excerpt, from the page entitled Brand Values.

As you can imagine, this has inspired a wave of photoshop copycats that mock their least favorite footballers with zeal. The Offside posted a few of their favorite examples a few weeks ago. Their main source for these  brochures is RedCafe.net, a forum for Manchester United fans. This Adebayor brochure from Arseblog is classic.

However, the fact this meme hasn’t crossed over into American sports yet is extremely disappointing. Imagine how much more exciting this would make this summer of NBA and NFL free agency! Photoshop experts, consider this a call to arms. Lamar Odom, Brett Favre, Allen Iverson and Big Baby Davis are out there pursuing their suitors, practically begging to mocked.

If you’re up to the 1st Annual Jon Pyle Michael Owen Brochure Style Photoshop Challenge, send me your best work via email (jp@pyleoflist.com) and I’ll post the best here.