Serge Gnabry cried when he wasn't allowed to make his dream move to Bayern Munich as a child.
He was 10 years old and his father Jean-Hermann didn't want the talented youngster entering the Bundesliga giants' academy, a more than two-hour drive from their home in Stuttgart.
"I wanted to, it's a true story," Gnabry tells BBC Sport. "Back then, Bayern was already the best club. It took me another 12 years to come back here."
Instead, he was made to wait until he was 12 before joining Stuttgart's youth system. Within a further four years - in 2011, at the age of 16 - he was on his way to Arsenal and the Premier League.
"I'm glad about how it's turned out," says Gnabry, who has since returned to Germany and become a star at Bayern.
"The route I've taken made me what I am and who I am today."
It's snowy in Munich and Bayern's ground staff have been working hard to clear the pitch for a morning training session at the club's base in the south of the city.
No-one will be using the on-site beer garden in this weather. Gnabry and his team-mates are well wrapped up as they trot out, slowing down to watch the under-23s playing keep-ball on an adjoining pitch, which is beginning to cut up in the wet and cold.
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