Owen Hargreaves fights back: The moving story of a gifted footballer's refusal to give up

Owen Hargreaves is a reluctant interviewee. As reluctant to reflect on three years of misery as he is to declare himself back before he actually is. Before his body has survived that first week of full training, that first 90 minutes of Barclays Premier League football.



He is cautious because you would be after the obstacles he has had to overcome. The search, first of all, for the correct treatment for his condition, the months of intense rehab that turned into years and then the setbacks; the cruel, crushing setbacks that at one stage left him so desperate he actually offered to play for Manchester United this season for nothing, just to extend his stay with them. Just to recover lost time.

Peaks and troughs: Owen Hargreaves won titles and trophies with Manchester United but it all ended in tears against Wolves (above)







Bad luck isn't the half of it. Hargreaves has been to hell and back via Sweden, Colorado and Vancouver, visiting faith healers and acupuncturists in his desperate search for salvation before meeting a physiotherapist who said to him what they said to the Six Million Dollar Man. Alex McKechnie, hired by the LA Lakers after saving Shaquille O'Neal's career, said he could rebuild him, and he has.



United paid for much of the treatment and surgery but it was Hargreaves, now a free agent after being released by the champions in the summer, who sought out the best specialists to cure him of his problems. That he has done so alone - he chooses not to have an agent - makes his story all the more remarkable.

He is an intelligent man; articulate even if he does like to use the F-word for emphasis. 'What's the alternative?' he says at one point in his soft Canadian accent. 'Give up? F*** that!'

It was what he said in that first meeting with McKechnie. 'I told him I just want to be able to walk away from football when I feel like it, and not have it dictated to me,' he says.



Star of the show: Hargreaves celebrates a memorable goal against Arsenal in April 2008

Hargreaves says he is fit and the medical experts who examined him recently at West Bromwich Albion would appear to agree. There is an offer on the table from Roy Hodgson, who said earlier this month that the 30-year-old midfielder, England's outstanding performer at the 2006 World Cup and a two-time European Cup winner, is 'going to be a very good player for someone'.



'I'm going to blow people away,' says Hargreaves after meeting up for a spot of lunch in a pub near his Cheshire home. 'I'm coming back believing I can return to the level I was at before. My body feels great and my knees are perfect. I've just got this huge chip on my shoulder because I've been out for three years and people think I'm dead and buried.



'I can understand why. I can see why people would be sceptical. When I walked off the pitch after five minutes in that game against Wolves last season, people must have thought, "What is it with this guy? Is he made of f*****g glass? Is he kidding?" It was my first game in two years.

Happier times: Fabio Capello talks to Hargreaves during England's friendly against the USA in May 2008 - the last time he played without pain

'I don't want to get ahead of myself. I'd like to get some proper football training and a few games under my belt before I get too excited.



'But, right now, I'd like to think I can play 40 games this season and with the right care I believe I can train every day. I hope to be back in the England side for the European Championship next summer. You have to have ambition.'



Aware of Hargreaves' ability and as hopeful as the player that his troubles are behind him, Fabio Capello and his staff have remained in contact. 'I still have a lot to offer,' says Hargreaves. 'When I watched Match of the Day I felt I could improve most of the teams I saw.'



There has been interest beyond West Brom, but Hargreaves is not going to rush into a decision when there is so much to consider. '

Just this summer, I've had maybe 30 agents getting in touch to say they can help,' he says. 'But I've turned them away. I don't see why some middle man should make a fast buck out of me. If clubs are interested, they will be able to see for themselves if I am fit.'

Anyone can see because Hargreaves has posted some of his training sessions on YouTube (see an example below).



'For the last three years I have had every training session videoed,' he says. 'It's been helpful in monitoring my progress. It was also used to let United know how I was doing when I was in Colorado for eight months undergoing rehab.



'It ended up on YouTube because the files were too big to email to specific people; specific clubs. So I put them on YouTube so they could see it. I know it became a bit of a story when people found it in the public domain but I really don't care. No big deal.'

Owen Hargreaves training June 2011







Why would it be after everything he has been through, after struggling for so long with a problem that began to develop before he even joined United for around £17million in the summer of 2007?



Hargreaves was playing for Bayern Munich when a foul challenge left him nursing a broken fibula in his left leg.

'When you suffer an injury like that you go into plaster and you lose a lot of muscle,' he says. 'And even when I was finally ready to come back, I probably didn't have the same bulk.

'That was probably when I started to damage the patella tendon on the outside of my knee joint. I played 10 straight games for Munich and then one day we did some sprint training and it went pop.

'It was probably a month before the end of the season. It settled down and I got through the medical at United but now I realise the problem was probably developing quite rapidly. The quadriceps is the shock absorber for the tendon and when the tendon starts to break down it doesn't have the ability to heal itself.

'When I join United I'm not going to let it bother me. I'm the new guy, there are high expectations, I want to play. The niggle is there so I sit out an England game. We started doing double sessions and my knee flared up. So I dropped out of a few sessions; did a bit of maintenance. But I just lived with the discomfort.



The way we were: Hargreaves signs for Manchester United along with Nani back in the summer of 2007

'That season I could always play but I would be able to feel the knee, I'd struggle a bit in training and after a game it would be sore. I guess the tendon slowly deteriorated and I didn't even celebrate winning the Champions League in Moscow because I wasn't content. I'd won a European and domestic Double but it wasn't the season I'd anticipated. I had higher expectations. I knew I was capable of playing better.'



After the Champions League final he did represent England against the USA and he played well. 'It was the last time I didn't feel pain in a game,' he says.



By the start of the following season, he was in trouble. 'It was killing me,' he says. Prolotherapy injections from a specialist in Leicester didn't work. In fact, he says, it made the condition worse.

'There were days when I couldn't even walk. I was involved at the start of the next season. I played against Villarreal, 50 or 60 minutes - felt all right actually - but then after 20 minutes against Liverpool I was off. A week later I started at Stamford Bridge. I took five or six painkillers but it didn't do me any good. That day I played the full 90 but I couldn't walk for three days after.'



Pain game: Hargreaves endures heartbreak as England are knocked out of the 2006 World Cup by Portugal in Germany

Getting to the root of the problem was proving difficult, though. Until, that is, Leif Sward - at the time the England doctor - recommended a specialist in Sweden.

'I'd been doing a lot of research on the internet, trying to establish exactly what the problem might be,' he says. 'I'm an explosive guy. My speed and athleticism are a big part of my game. But it seemed I didn't have an injury that was that common to football. It was more common in basketball and handball.

'As I'm reading, this guy's name keeps coming up. Hakan Alfredson. So I called Leif and he told me he was like the Godfather of tendons.



'I went to see him with the Manchester United doctor. He's right up in the Arctic tip of Sweden. It took three planes to get there. Anyway, this guy gave me a scan and examined me. He said the tendon in my knee was really bad. It's full of dead tissue. But he felt there was an 80 per cent chance that surgery would be successful and I would play again.'



He told Hargreaves he needed surgery, so his next stop was Vail in Colorado for a consultation with Richard Steadman, the world famous knee surgeon.



Steadman, says Hargreaves, was terrific, although in the end he had to operate on both knees. In trying to compensate for his left knee he had managed to damage the tendons in the right knee.



'Only I couldn't have the surgery right away,' says Hargreaves. 'Steadman said my tendon was like apple sauce and it needed time to recover a bit before he could operate. It was November 2008 before he operated on the right knee and January 2009 when he did the left one.



'While I was there I met this guy Luke O'Brien, who worked with Steadman on the rehab side. I liked him and I trusted him. He's become a good friend. I called United and said, "I'm not coming back. I'm going to do my rehab here".'



Even then, it was a long, slow, often torturous battle. What was meant to take eight months took 18, not helped by yet further setbacks.



Back then there was a desire, naturally, to make it back in time for the 2010 World Cup. Capello was desperate to have him there and he told him he would give him every chance to prove his fitness, waiting until the very last minute until finally concluding - because he had played so little football - that it would be too much of a risk to take him to South Africa.



Fighting for glory: In action against Frank Lampard during the triumphant Champions League final in 2008

Hargreaves had tried everything to answer England's call. 'I was desperate to play,' he says. 'And desperate to find any way of accelerating the healing process. I even read this book about the brain; about how this triathlete guy had used positive thinking to make himself better after being hit by a car while out on his bike.

'It was during that time, though, that a friend recommended Alex. He was based in Vancouver but I went and spent a load of time over there with him. "By coming here you're taking ownership of your health," he said. And he said there is no such thing as an injury-prone athlete. That's only something a physio would say when he can't find a solution.'



Now he is into the early part of last season, and finally feels like he might be able to play again. After two years on the sidelines he is starting to train well, and there is a game coming up against Wolves he has a chance of starting.



'It was going OK until I felt a bit of tightness in my calf a few days before the game,' he says. 'But it was the last session, on the Friday, when it went badly wrong.

'I'm chasing back Chris Smalling and I feel my hamstring go. I'm obviously compensating because of the calf. And I'm thinking, "What the f***?" I'm just sitting there on the pitch.' The next day, it was a dilemma for everyone involved. There was a desperation to see him play, from his team-mates to the medical staff to Sir Alex Ferguson, so he did.

Full of respect: Hargreaves holds no animosity towards Sir Alex Ferguson over the way his United career ended

'I lasted five minutes,' he says. 'Before I tore my f*****g hamstring,' he says. 'And when I had the scan afterwards there were two tears in my calf, too.



'Walking off the pitch that day was the longest walk of my life. It took all my energy just to make it back to the dressing-room.

'It's my first game in two years, I've had a standing ovation and I've now got 70,000 people looking at me - millions more on TV - and all I can think is, "Try not to limp". I look like a joker.

'I wanted to try to keep playing. I think it shows how desperate I was, trying to battle on with two muscle injuries. I wanted to at least get to half-time. But I last five minutes!

'I'm not an emotional guy but when I finally made it into the dressing-room, I just cried. I was sitting there with one of the physios and I was so overwhelmed. I had put so much into it. For two years I had been visualising the moment in my mind.'

Keep on smiling: Hargreaves insists he will make a full comeback

His team-mates were as heartbroken as he was. That night Edwin van der Sar went to his house and sat with him. 'Edwin's a good guy,' says Hargreaves. 'It was very nice of him.'



It was January this year before he returned to full training and again things were starting to go well. A match against West Ham had even been pencilled in for his comeback.



But then came a training session with the youth team. 'It was international week so I joined the kids one day,' he says. 'I go up for this header and as I try to push this kid away in the air we get tangled up and I put my shoulder out.

'Suddenly I'm in the worst pain I've ever felt. It's a full dislocation and it hurts like hell. I'm thinking I am seriously f*****g cursed and then I almost passed out.'

A physio pops the shoulder back in and the pain immediately subsides, but sitting down with United's medical staff he now has two options: surgery that pretty much rules him out for what remains of the season or intense rehab in the hope of coming back sooner.

'I went for the second option because I'm aware my contract is coming to an end and I need to prove I can play again,' he says. 'But there were other niggles associated with the problem and before I could get back playing, the season had finished.

'I actually opted to have the surgery done in Vancouver with the aim being to be ready for this season. I said my goodbyes to the boys before the Champions League final. That was it. I was gone.'



He says he feels no ill will towards United or towards Sir Alex Ferguson. 'I don't blame them for letting me go,' he says. 'I can understand it. There comes a point when you have to say this hasn't worked out. The game has moved on. See you later, all the best.

'David Gill's a terrific guy and a terrific chief executive. And with the boss there is no animosity. There was probably a lot of frustration on his part even if there was a lot more on mine.

On the way back: Hargreaves puts in the effort on the training ground this summer

'I told the boss I will play 40 games this season. He said he could see me playing again, but he wanted to start bringing the younger players through. When I played for him he was fantastic.

'He's a great manager. He knows the players who can win a game for him. He's the best at that.

'The guys were great, too. It's a wonderful club. The people behind the scenes are terrific. Some of the guys on the medical staff have become great friends. At one stage I did offer to play for nothing this season, just to stay on. But they said, "You don't want to do that" and they were probably right.'



After nine weeks in Vancouver with McKechnie, the shoulder is good, the knees are perfect. Steadman has said his body could take the impact of 'jumping from the Eiffel Tower'. He's ready to go.



'Scholesy said he would have retired long ago if he'd been me,' he says. 'But I'm a competitor and I was never prepared to quit when I was only 26, 27 when things started to go wrong.



'I was obviously blessed with athletic ability but my talent is to compete. That's why, in the big games, I've always been among the best players. Better sometimes than the world's best. That's not a coincidence. I have the ability to dig deep and it's probably why I'm still on this path.'



If anyone now deserves a break, it is Hargreaves.



