IT might be two months before Blackburn Rovers' UEFA Cup campaign gets underway, but Mark Hughes and his players are already rubbing shoulders with the cream of European football.

Aside from their pre-season dates with Hamburg and the Greek champions Olympiakos, Rovers are also sharing a training base here in Germany with the Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich.

Bayern, fresh from completing yet another league and cup double, are in the lakeside town of Rottach-Egern sharpening their focus before the German domestic season kicks off next month, and they gave Hughes and company a full demonstration of their might last night, crushing the locals 14-1 in an embarrassingly one-sided, but perversely entertaining, pre-season friendly.

In fairness, FC Rottach-Egern were never going to be a match for the dominant force in German football; as far as contests go this was like Muhammad Ali boxing Ronnie Corbett.

Nevertheless, Bayern still enjoyed flexing their collective muscle in front of a crowd of 3,000, which contained Hughes, his coaching staff and some of the Rovers' first team squad.

Roy Makaay, Lucio, Roque Santa Cruz and Mehmet Scholl were among the stellar cast on view, but few players attracted more interest than Owen Hargreaves, the man England fans loved to hate until a man-of-the-match performance in the World Cup quarter final debacle against Portugal went some way to repairing his tarnished image.

A member of the Bayern merchandising team was recently asked who was the most popular player in terms of shirt sales now that Michael Ballack has defected to Stamford Bridge.

The answer, emphatically, was Hargreaves, confirmation, if it were needed, of the high regard in which this England international is held in his adopted home.

Hughes would no doubt have been impressed by the midfielder's stamina in temperatures approaching the mid-30s last night as he looked on from his vantage point on the front seat of Rovers' team coach - parked strategically close to the halfway line of the Sportplatz Birkenmoos.

Surrounded by steepling mountain sides, this idyllic corner of the Tegernsee region has been Rovers' base for the last six days.

Hughes and his squad were due to train here again today before facing Olympiakos at the Ritter-von-Halt Stadium, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, tomorrow; a game that will act as another appetiser for the European battles lying ahead.