Gareth Bale has joined the TNT Sports line-up ahead of the new season and will cover his old club Tottenham in the Champions League.

Spurs threw away a two-goal lead with five minutes left to lose the Super Cup on penalties to Paris Saint-Germain.

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Unless the Welshman dusts off his boots to play for Spurs, it won’t generate the same excitement as one transfer saga after the Super Cup in 2005.

Rafael Benítez wasted little time in making waves upon his arrival at Liverpool the year before.

The Spaniard sanctioned Michael Owen’s £8million move to Real Madrid only weeks after succeeding Gérard Houllier as manager.

Owen joined Liverpool aged just 12 and went on to break into the first team in 1997 before soon becoming an England regular.

The striker remains the club’s seventh-highest scorer, having fired in an impressive 158 goals in 297 games for the Reds.

Owen’s exploits on Merseyside saw him scoop the Ballon d’Or in 2001 – the last Englishman to lift the coveted award.

However, Liverpool went on to win the Champions League during the first season without him, following the Miracle of Istanbul.

Owen, meanwhile, scored 16 goals in 45 appearances during his one season at the Santiago Bernabeu before looking to return home.

Benitez initially tried playing coy on the possibility of signing a player he had agreed to sell a year earlier in the build-up to the Super Cup.

“We have not made an offer for Michael Owen and I am looking only for a centre-back, not for a centre-forward,” Benitez said.

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“I smile when I read in the Spanish press that we have opened talks with Real Madrid. Michael Owen is a good player but we have six players in that position and we need a right-winger and a centre-back.”

Benitez also rejected his captain Steven Gerrard’s claim that Liverpool could not afford to see Owen join any of their Premier League rivals.

“My priority is to work with the players I have at the moment to improve them, with Crouch, with Morientes,” he added.

“I must be focused on my team while trying to sign better players but at the moment the answer is the same: we have six strikers for only two places.”

Benitez’s poker face was finally broken by his former Liverpool chief executive, Rick Parry, in the hours before the 2005 Super Cup.

Newcastle had agreed a surprise £17m club record deal for Owen, but the-then 25-year-old made it clear he preferred to return to Anfield.

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Parry said: “There has never been a split between us and Rafa over Michael or any other player.

“It’s not a no or a yes – there has been plenty of speculation and we will see next week.

“It’s always encouraging when a player says he wants to come to Liverpool.”

The Premier League champions eventually showed their hand after a 3-1 extra-time victory over CSKA Moscow in the 2005 Super Cup.

But with Liverpool ultimately unable to match Newcastle’s offer, Owen revealed years later that he was left with a decision to make.

He told BT Sports’ ‘What I Wore’: “I spoke to Newcastle and Newcastle agreed that if I signed for them, I can do one year and then they will sell me to Liverpool for an agreed fee of £12m.

“Then if I do another year, then they’ll sell me to Liverpool for £8m, and another year for £4m.

“So every year, it would be more attractive for Liverpool to buy me back.”

Benitez even alluded to such a clause ahead of Owen’s return to Anfield with Newcastle in December 2005.

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Robbie Fowler returns home

He said: “I can see him returning to Anfield one day.

“That could happen. Why not? He’s a top player and every club is always interested in signing good players.

“We tried to sign him right until the end.”

Yet a month later, Benitez was unveiling Owen’s former Liverpool teammate, Robbie Fowler, over four years after his surprise exit.

“I can’t really believe it’s happened again,” said the man dubbed ‘God’ by the Anfield crowd following his free transfer from Manchester City.

“I’m so happy it’s frightening.

“To travel back to Anfield was great. To actually put pen to paper… well, it is something that I have wanted to happen for a long time.”

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Why did Owen never rejoin Liverpool?

In an interview on Rio Ferdinand Presents FIVE, Owen admitted he tried again to return to Liverpool after leaving Newcastle.

He said: “I didn’t go from Liverpool to Manchester United because that would have been virtually impossible, but everyone knows I grew up playing for Liverpool in the academy and when I left to go to Madrid and then came back home, I wanted to go to Liverpool.

“Once I went to Newcastle… that almost broke my heart in a way because I wasn’t going back to what I perceive to be my club.

“When I finished at Newcastle it was again a case of can I get to Liverpool and Brendan Rodgers said he didn’t need me at the time.

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“At that point, you have just got to go to whoever is the best available. Once I got over that [feeling of] is everyone going to hate me and the pain of have I ruined everything etc. etc, it was a no-brainer [to join United]. I knew everyone, I played at England with them all, I knew Sir Alex and all the rest of it.

“So to play in that stadium, live at home, I was playing in the best team at the time, I had the chance of winning; the league, the Champions League and all the rest of it, it was an absolute no-brainer.

“I had no doubts at all that was the best move career-wise to make and people have to remember that footballers, yes we have loyalties, but if we can’t play for them then . . . “

Owen went on to score 17 goals in 52 games for Man United, winning the Premier League title and League Cup during his three-year spell.

He then moved to Stoke City in September 2012, which proved to be his final campaign as a professional.