There were just 51 seconds on the clock when Michael Owen felt his knee buckle. The Newcastle United star's World Cup was over before it had really started.
It was June 20, 2006 and England were facing Sweden in the Three Lions' final group game in Cologne when Owen went down. The striker had just had what proved to be one of his only touches of the night after cutting inside from the touchline and passing the ball to Ashley Cole without a second thought.
However, when Owen picked out his team-mate, for a split-second, it was as if there was no signal between his brain and his foot. As Owen's body went into one position, his leg was moving elsewhere and his right knee snapped.
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Among the millions watching on from home that night was the late Freddy Shepherd, who said he 'nearly vomited' at the sight. As much as it was a sickening injury - Owen tore his cruciate - the Newcastle chairman was in shock and facing up to the prospect of one of the club's most important players being ruled out for the majority of the season before the fixtures for the new campaign had even been released.
Alarm bells were soon ringing. Adrian Bevington, the FA's director of communications at the time, had just taken his seat in the main stand alongside Sir Trevor Brooking when his phone started ringing.
"While Michael was being treated, I received a call from someone at Newcastle United who, obviously, was extremely concerned with the situation and the impact that was going to have on the club's forthcoming season with a player who they invested so much money in," he told ChronicleLive.
"Michael had already had injury problems so it's fair to say they weren't best pleased from a club perspective and the fact that the player had been playing for England. In the heat of the moment, I bore the brunt of the frustration while I was literally sitting in my seat while the game was going on.
"It was from someone I always liked and had a great relationship with. It wasn't personal - it was just a huge frustration with the circumstances."
That anger was understandable. Owen, after all, had just come back from a broken metatarsal and the striker had simply not played enough games before the World Cup.
England boss Sven-Goran Eriksson may have commented that he had not seen an 'on fire' Owen in such good shape for years, but the reality was the Newcastle star felt completely undercooked going into that tournament. Owen could even see a huge difference in muscle tone in his legs.
Now, after just one game back for Newcastle - a half-hour cameo as a substitute before the World Cup - Owen was set for an even longer lay-off with the new season just a couple of months away. Shepherd likened the situation to lending tools to someone and getting them back broken - only this was the club's most expensive signing of all-time.
Newcastle and the FA did have insurance policies in place, at least, but Shepherd seriously considered taking the country's football governing body to court. Although the policies meant that Owen's wages would be covered during his spell on the sidelines - that would not have been the case if this had been a smaller association at the time - there was also the small matter of the cost of finding a replacement, potential long-term damage, depreciation of value and, even, the loss of points for Newcastle.
A landmark settlement was eventually reached, which led to a compensation payment being made to Newcastle in an attempt to soften the blow a little. This was rather unprecedented. In fact, another FA insider told ChronicleLive that agreement 'caused some internal controversy' because it was 'an unusual and potentially dangerous approach taken by those who signed that off'.
There was always a risk, of course, that such an injury could happen to any player on international duty and the majority of the England squad were big-name stars worth upwards of £20m-£30m each, which were colossal sums at the time. This agreement could have opened the door to further claims yet, luckily for the FA, that did not happen.
Regardless, Owen did return to action the following April in rather bizarre circumstances. The man who later expressed doubts about his own fitness when Newcastle needed him most for a relegation decider years later claimed that Shepherd 'wasn't keen' for him to return quite so quickly in 2007 because the club were still receiving the insurance money.
That led to the rather farcical situation of Owen being asked to make himself scarce when Sky's cameras were at the training ground days before his comeback against Reading. Cue a blazing row over the phone with Shepherd as Owen detailed in his book, 'Reboot'.
"‘Listen,’ he yelled at me," Owen wrote. "‘You’ve earned a s--- load of money since you’ve been at this bloody club. All I’m asking you to do is f------ go and hide in the toilets for five minutes for one day.’"
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