Last Wednesday night, over 10 million Germans witnessed Bayern Munich's nervy win over Fabio Capello's wretched ex-galacticos.
Torsten Frings wasn't one of them. The Werder Bremen and Germany midfielder had plenty of time to spare in his hotel room in Vigo - Werder won away to Celta in the Uefa Cup the next day - but preferred to watch some, ahem, adult entertainment instead.
Frings really didn't care. He is exactly that type of guy: the last long-haired, 'I don't care what you think, we will beat you and feast on your bodies' nutter of the Bundesliga and an excellent footballer, too. In environmentally-friendly Germany, where leaving your motor on while parking can get you a life sentence without the possibility of parole, he has upset countless people by driving a Hummer, the gas-guzzling monstrosity of a car.
Perhaps more worryingly, he used to have a raccoon called Billy as a pet. But his most eccentric trait surely must have been turning his back on Bayern after only one double-winning season in Munich and going back to Bremen. But Frings knew what he was doing. He knew that at Werder, he could be the boss, the main man on the pitch.
And he knew that this Werder side was good enough to challenge for the title in their own right, too. When Frings was five years old, he fell off his bike and was hit by a car. The accident left a long scar on his left cheek; what happened to the car and its driver is unknown. Indisputable, however, is the fact that all of Werder's famous fluidity would simply drain away like so much spilt water if Frings didn't provide them with a steel basin.
