With the Bundesliga's winter hibernation finally drawing to a close, our Bayern Munich "Best of British" trilogy also concludes this week with a look at England's Owen Hargreaves.
Yes, it's England's and not Canada's Owen Hargreaves. It's still a moot point for many Canadians as "Hargo" was born and bred in Calgary to an English father and a Welsh mother.
He was desperate to carve out a career in Europe and impressed Bayern as a raw Calgary high school kid on trial in 1997. He was talented enough to earn a spot in the youth academy and went on to spend a memorable decade in Munich.
However, his early days in Bavaria were tinged with homesickness with one of the few solaces a David Beckham poster.
Hargreaves revealed to the Guardian: "I was 16 years old and I'd just come to Munich from Calgary. I was staying in this youth hostel at the club, I couldn't speak a word of German and I ate nothing but schnitzel for the first six months. Life was pretty hard and lonely but I had Beckham on my wall."
While making those baby steps to the big-time, he easily mastered the lingo and his burgeoning talent guaranteed a swift rise to prominence. He graduated through the youth set-up and the reserves (15 appearances in the Regionalliga South) before establishing himself under Ottmar Hitzfeld in the 2000-01 season.
He captured the attention of the watching world as an inexperienced 20-year-old during Bayern's successful 2001 Champions League campaign. Barnstorming games against Real Madrid in the semifinals and Valencia in the final meant Hargreaves had firmly arrived on the scene.
With Hargreaves now a fixture in the starting XI, Bayern also literally snatched the league title away from Schalke in the last seconds of the season in an enthralling finale.
Hargreaves racked up 145 appearances (five goals) for Bayern and three further Bundesliga and German Cup titles naturally followed, as did a career with his chosen national team. He won 42 caps for England and was the Three Lions' standout player during the 2006 World Cup, alongside his idol and poster pin-up Beckham.
In a heated quarterfinal better known for Wayne Rooney's stupid sending off and Cristiano Ronaldo's wink to his bench, Hargreaves was the only player to score in England's penalty shootout defeat to Portugal (Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher all failed to convert).
From a virtual ever-present his fitness began to falter and Hargreaves made only nine league appearances the following season due to an inflamed knee. Bayern could only finish fourth with Hargreaves' final outing coming in the 2-0 defeat at soon-to-be champions VfB Stuttgart in April.
That should have alerted Sir Alex Ferguson's medical team at Manchester United, who had been chasing Hargreaves' signature for a couple of seasons. United finally got their man in the summer of 2007, with Bayern Chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge describing him as "one of the best holding midfielders in the world."
The reported 25 million euro fee, at the time the most expensive sale in Bayern's history, softened the blow of losing the all-action midfielder, who was never sent off during his professional career.
He also prospered initially in England, winning the Premier League and Champions League in his debut season and he also scored in the penalty shootout as United overcame Chelsea in an all-English final in Moscow. That was as good as it got as an injury jinx struck and Hargreaves managed only 27 appearances for United over four seasons. Hargreaves, despite initial success at United, was another high-profile player (like Roy Keane) to incur Fergie's wrath in his autobiography, who labelled the move "a disaster."
Ferguson was not amused as Hargreaves constantly battled knee problems, enduring long periods out of the game. He spat venom in his bio: "When I signed him there was something about him I didn't like."
Hargreaves had another go at noisy neighbours Manchester City but eventually had to call time on his career in 2012. However, the legacy of Hargreaves' 10 years with Bayern is one that will not be forgotten as the man himself still fondly recalls: "Munich was a beautiful place and the club were great to me. I'll always be grateful to Bayern."
He is now making a comfortable living as a media pundit in England and Germany.