Profile: Owen Hargreaves, footballer

I thought he'd retired?

No! Hargreaves is apparently fighting fit and ready to play club football again. The former Bayern Munich midfielder came to most people's attention at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, when he was a controversial selection for the England squad. He was the only player picked who wasn't in the Premier League, spoke fluent German and had a Canadian accent. By the end of the tournament, however, he'd won over English fans.

Where did it go wrong?

He joined Manchester United for £17m in 2007 but chronic tendonitis saw him make just 39 appearances for the club in the past four years, and Sir Alex Ferguson announced that he would be letting go of Hargreaves back in May. Since then, he's struggled to drum up interest from other top-flight clubs. His agents, though, are convinced he has the potential to play well into his thirties, posting videos of him training on YouTube.

Sounds embarrassing...

Yes it is. The devoted can access not one but 20 clips of him doing things fit and healthy footballers do: running between cones, kicking a ball, stretching, doing exercises with a medicine ball. For those with a little less time on their hands, the undoubted highlight is his treadmill session, which sees him running sideways while appearing to dance to a techno version of Aretha Franklin's "Say a Little Prayer".