Owen Hargreaves, right, fends off the challenge of Portugal midfielder Tiago during the World Cup 2006 quarter-final at the Stadium Gelsenkirchen on July 1, 2006 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Clive Mason/Getty Images
Owen Hargreaves, right, fends off the challenge of Portugal midfielder Tiago during the World Cup 2006 quarter-final at the Stadium Gelsenkirchen on July 1, 2006 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Clive Mason/Getty Images
Owen Hargreaves, right, fends off the challenge of Portugal midfielder Tiago during the World Cup 2006 quarter-final at the Stadium Gelsenkirchen on July 1, 2006 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Clive Mason/Getty Images
Owen Hargreaves, right, fends off the challenge of Portugal midfielder Tiago during the World Cup 2006 quarter-final at the Stadium Gelsenkirchen on July 1, 2006 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Clive Mason

My favourite World Cup moment: Owen Hargreaves' lung-busting show in 2006


Steve Luckings
  • English
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MATCH INFO

What: 2006 World Cup quarter-final
When: July 1
Where: Gelsenkirchen Stadium, Gelsenkirchen, Germany

Result:
England 0 Portugal 0
(Portugal win 3-1 on penalties)

Few things in life match the thrill of watching a World Cup match live. The frisson of excitement that courses through my body upon the first glimpse of the stadium is the same today as it was the first time I first laid eyes on White Hart Lane, home of the team I support, Tottenham Hotspur. Magical.

The same feeling struck me as the bus transporting us from one of the fanzones approached the quite splendid Gelsenkirchen Stadium – one of Europe's most underrated – in the North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany for a 2006 World Cup quarter-final between England and Portugal. It was where I would see the greatest individual performance by an Englishman at a World Cup since Alan Ball ran the show as England triumphed on home soil to lift the Jules Rimet trophy 40 years earlier.

The day was unbelievably hot, the AC on the bus had decided it was going home with Spain in the last 16 and talk of how Qatar would ever host a World Cup in a Middle East summer wouldn't even be on the agenda for another four years.

And while temperatures on that bus soared with both perspiration and excitement, it was nothing compared to the amount of heat the inclusion of one player in England's line-up generated.

Much of the debate of the supposed "Golden generation" centred around the composite of its midfield. More specifically, how to accommodate Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes in the same team.

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Many square pegs were hammered furiously into round holes in trying to accommodate all three into a cohesive working unit that would utilise the goal-scoring threat of Lampard, the drive of Gerrard and the artistry of Scholes while also offering balance and a screen to the defence. Scholes – undoubtedly the most gifted of the three – always seemed, not unreasonably, the least enthusiastic to play out of position when asked.

So when Scholes announced his international retirement after crashing out of Euro 2004 to Portugal, the 2006 incarnation of England's midfield to face the same opponents featured a player who many fans didn't believe even warranted a place in the 23-man squad.

Owen Hargreaves didn't have to travel far to meet up with Sven Goran-Eriksson's squad. He arrived in Baden Baden a Bundesliga champion with Bayern Munich, one of four won as a central pivot at Germany's premier club between 2000 and 2006.

Hargreaves had starred for Bayern as they lifted a first European Cup in 25 years with a shoot-out victory over Valencia in 2001. Such was Hargreaves' emergence on the scene, Stefan Effenberg, the poster boy of German midfield mavericks, was slowly phased out of the first team to allow Hargreaves to flourish.

But while loved in Bavaria, Hargreaves was largely loathed at home. Was it the accent that counted against him? Born in Canada to a Welsh mother and an English father, Hargreaves was eligible to play international football for all three, eventually plumping for England despite representing Wales at Under 19 level. Maybe it was the fact he played in a league not widely available for consumption by England fans. It seems the biggest mistake he made in the eyes of the fans was choosing the world-renown finishing school of Bayern over one in the Premier League, a division that had picked up a reputation for stifling young English talent rather than fermenting it, when leaving Calgary Foothills FC in 1997.

By the end of 120 minutes plus penalties of another gut-wrenching elimination from another major tournament though, Hargreaves would make the transition from zero to hero.

As a shield in front of the back four, Hargreaves' all-action display against a Portugal boasting one bona fide superstar in Luis Figo and one in the making in Cristiano Ronaldo felt supernatural: the blood and thunder England fans demand from anyone with three lions on their chest, clarity of thought under pressure, assurance on the ball and a will to take the game to the opposition. The calories burnt up covering extra ground following Wayne Rooney's red card on 62 minutes must have touched four digits.

One mazy dribble left Ronaldo – the king of the stepover – flat on his backside. When Ronaldo tried to do the same to Hargreaves minutes later, the Englishman simply stood his ground and emerged with the ball to set off up the field again.

Attacks were cut off at the source; possession – that priceless commodity that has eluded England teams both past and present – was retained principally by England's No 16. A lung-bursting run down the left-hand side from his own half carried Hargreaves close to Portugal's penalty area, the whistle of referee Horacio Elizondo to signal the end of 120 gruelling minutes succeeding where a trail of Portuguese players had failed in halting the midfield terrier.

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My favourite World Cup moments:

Part 1: Gazza's tears at Italia 90

Part 2: The Ronaldo mystery at France 98

Part 3: Roberto Baggio's magic at USA 94

Part 4: Mario Goetze's late show for Germany

Part 5: Maradona makes his mark at Mexico 86

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In the shoot-out Hargreaves would prove that rarity among Englishmen and successfully convert his penalty. His was the only one from four attempts as Lampard, Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, the Liverpool centre-back introduced as a 119th-minute substitute primarily because he had shown promise from 12 yards in training sessions, fluffed their lines.

England were out. Hargreaves would never scale those heights again for his country, winning the last of his 42 caps in 2008.

The pitch at Gelsenkirchen must have had multiple re-lays since that titanic display in 2006, but the indelible footprints of Hargeaves will forever remain a part of it.

Steve Luckings is Deputy Sports Editor at The National

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The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. 
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

Six large-scale objects on show
  • Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
  • The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
  • A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
  • Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
  • A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
  • Torrijos Palace dome
Five films to watch

Castle in the Sky (1986)

Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Only Yesterday (1991)

Pom Poki (1994)

The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013)

THE SPECS

Engine: 3.5-litre supercharged V6

Power: 416hp at 7,000rpm

Torque: 410Nm at 3,500rpm

Transmission: 6-speed manual

Fuel consumption: 10.2 l/100km

Price: Dh375,000 

On sale: now 

VEZEETA PROFILE

Date started: 2012

Founder: Amir Barsoum

Based: Dubai, UAE

Sector: HealthTech / MedTech

Size: 300 employees

Funding: $22.6 million (as of September 2018)

Investors: Technology Development Fund, Silicon Badia, Beco Capital, Vostok New Ventures, Endeavour Catalyst, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, Saudi Technology Ventures and IFC

The National Archives, Abu Dhabi

Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.

Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en

MATCH INFO

What: 2006 World Cup quarter-final
When: July 1
Where: Gelsenkirchen Stadium, Gelsenkirchen, Germany

Result:
England 0 Portugal 0
(Portugal win 3-1 on penalties)