Until recent years, British players have generally been reluctant to ply their trade abroad compared with their continental colleagues.
So you can imagine what a big risk it was for Kevin Keegan to have made that move back in 1977.
The midfielder was Liverpool's star player and was just about to help the club to win their first-ever European Cup when the deal was struck to take him to Hamburg - so why leave, and why HSV?
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"I don’t like sausages – unfortunately, I couldn’t get away from them in Germany!"
Keegan told FourFourTwo in 2007: "I’d dispute that I could have moved to any club in the world.
"In 1977 there were no English players abroad and they weren’t perceived as a good investment. Only [Welsh Juventus legend] John Charles had done really well.
"Hamburg was the only offer I got, and that’s where I went.
"They phoned me up, I said I wanted to leave Liverpool - I felt I was stagnating there, even though I loved the club, the fans and the players.
"I needed a change; I’m not the type of character who stays at one club for all his life.
"Hamburg offered me four times the salary that I was on, which was incredible. So financially it was right, and my wife spoke German, which was a great start.
"I just thought, ‘That’s the type of challenge that I want to try’."
Keegan won back-to-back Ballons d'Or while at Hamburg - he remains the only Englishman ever to win more than one - as well as helping the side to a Bundesliga title and a European Cup final.
There was one downside to the move, though...
"I don’t like sausages – unfortunately, I couldn’t get away from them in Germany!", Keegan said.
"I loved the cakes over there though, to my coach’s disdain.
"There was a fantastic patisserie next to the training ground...but I’ve never been a sausage fan."
This interview first appeared in the April 2007 edition of FourFourTwo magazine
