What next for Owen Hargreaves?

When you think about Owen Hargreaves, and if you are not thinking about his injuries, just two words come to your mind: hard-working and tireless. He was one of the two English players to have won a champions league medal with a non-English club, the other being the then talisman of real madrid, Steve McManaman. He had a pretty successful stint with Bayern Munich where he won four German League titles along with the UEFA champions League title.

His inclusion in the 2006 FIFA World Cup squad was not welcomed. He mostly received negative feedback from the English faithful because of his so called “German-ness” to add to his Canadian accent. But his finest performances came in the same tournament, where he was arguably the best English player in an otherwise sorry campaign for the England team. His performances won him both the England player of the year and England player of the world cup 2006, the first to win both the awards in the same year.

After signing for Manchester United from Bayern Munich, he had a pretty successful first season with them. He won the Premier league and the Champions league title. But it was the start of the 2008-09 campaign when it all started to spiral down. He was plagued by injuries repeatedly. He underwent operations, rehabilitation, but everything was in vain. On 2nd May 2010, he made his first appearance in almost 20 months against Sunderland. He made his first start for Manchester United after a gap of almost two years just to come out holding his hamstring after a mere five minutes.

He only played 39 games during his four year tenure at the Theatre of Dreams. His contract expired at the end of 2010-11 season. As expected, he was not offered another contract by Manchester United. He had to publish videos of him training in order to prove his fitness to potential clubs. That is when Manchester City came knocking. With Patrick Vieira retiring the season before and Yaya Toure scheduled to go for the African cup of nations, it gave an opportunity to Hargreaves and he was signed on a pay-as-you-play contract. But he appeared in four games all season and was also left out of the Champions League squad by Roberto Mancini. In a way, it was justified.With Mancini having such a talented squad at his disposal, and with Hargreaves struggling to prove his fitness, he could not take the risk. Eventually, he was released by Manchester City at the end of this season.

Rumors were also floating that the now England boss Roy Hodgson, who was managing West Brom in 2011, was an admirer of Hargreaves and was also interested in signing him. But with the kind of ambitious player Hargreaves is, he probably did not want to go to a smaller club and hence chose Manchester City over West Brom. One would say that the story would have been totally different had he chosen West Brom over City.

The question is, what next for him ? Is he good enough for a big club? Rejected by both Manchester clubs, does he need to prove his fitness once again? Is he fit enough to play at the highest level once again? Only he can answer these questions. At 31, he is too young to hang up his boots. One would think that perhaps he has some years left in him in a league which is less intense. Four thousand miles across the Atlantic might be his destination. Yes, I am talking about the MLS. Even if he is 70% of what he used to be, he would surely be a great asset to a lot of MLS clubs.

Many experts say that Hargreaves has got a lot to offer to football if he manages to keep himself fit. If he really manages to find a club who will trust him and his fitness, and gives him a decent run of matches, I am pretty sure he will hit the form that he showed us during the 2006 World Cup. After all, he is a good player who only needs some game time under his belt.