Owen Hargreaves

Bayern Munich

Hargreaves tried out for Bayern Munich in October 1996 and moved at the age of 16 from Calgary Foothills to the German club on 1 July 1997. He played in the Under-19 team for two and a half years before spending nine months with the amateur team. While with the Under-19s, the team reached the final of the German Championship in 1998. They lost in the final to Borussia Dortmund, but only after a penalty shoot-out at Dortmund's Stadion Rote Erde. On 12 August 2000, Hargreaves played in his first Bundesliga match against Hertha Berlin, making an appearance as a substitute for Carsten Jancker in the 83rd minute. His first start came against SpVgg Unterhaching on 16 September 2000. That season the club were Bundesliga champions and also won the UEFA Champions League, with Hargreaves starting the final in central midfield. Hargreaves is one of only three English players to have won a Champions League medal with a non-English club, alongside two-time winner Steve McManaman (who won the Champions League with Real Madrid in 1999–2000 and 2001–02) and Jude Bellingham (who won the Champions League with Real Madrid in 2024). In the 2001–02 season, Hargreaves established himself as a first team regular. He made 46 appearances in all, with the club finishing third in the Bundesliga, making the quarter-finals of the Champions League and being defeated in the DFB-Pokal by Schalke. The club regained their Bundesliga title in 2002–03, along with the DFB-Pokal. On 26…

Born in Canada to a Welsh mother and an English father, Hargreaves was eligible to play international football for England, Wales or Canada. Hargreaves was not selected to play for the Canada U-17 World Cup team, despite being a promising youth player who trialled for Bayern Munich and was about to sign a contract with them. Hargreaves drew the ire of soccer fans in Canada for choosing to play for England. One fansite went to the lengths of demanding that the three Canadian teams in MLS (Montreal Impact, Toronto FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps) never sign Hargreaves to play for them, after he was courted by the Vancouver Whitecaps in 2010.

Wales

He represented Wales at the 1998 Milk Cup where Wales finished in third place behind Turkey and Northern Ireland, but finished above Russia. He was set to make his début for the Wales U21 team against the Belarus U21 team in September 2000 but pulled out of the squad after he was approached by England.

England

On 31 August 2000, the then England under-21 manager, Howard Wilkinson, called the 19-year-old into his squad for the match against Georgia. The game, played at the Riverside Stadium, Middlesbrough, ended in a 6–1 win for the home team. Further appearances for the under-21s followed in friendlies against Italy and Spain. Hargreaves played his first full international game on 15 August 2001 against the Netherlands at White Hart Lane, giving him the distinction of being the only player to appear for England…

Hargreaves appears as a pundit for TNT Sports as part of their Premier League, FA Cup, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Champions League coverage. He is also a football analyst on news channel CNN, and has covered the Euro 2016 competition in France.

Hargreaves was born in Calgary, Alberta, as the youngest of three boys for Margaret and Colin Hargreaves, who had emigrated from the United Kingdom at the start of the 1980s. His father played football for the Bolton Wanderers youth side and also for the Calgary Kickers of the Canadian Soccer League. He is the only member of his family born in Canada; his brother Darren and his mother were both born in Wales, and his other brother Neil and his father were born in England. As a youngster in North America, in addition to football, Hargreaves grew up watching and playing sports like basketball, ice hockey, and American football. His sporting heroes were basketball icon Michael Jordan and American football and baseball player Deion Sanders.