OFF THE BALL: NEW YEAR'S SPECIAL

Cologne - Off the Ball, bundesliga.com's quirky periodical, offers a selection of the offbeat stories to have emerged in Germany’s top flight in the past few days.

In this New Year's edition, we look at FC Bayern München's most googled players in 2014, Jerome Boateng's questionable sartorial style and an unusual role for former Schalke and Dortmund midfielder Steffen Freund.

2014's most googled

2014 will undoubtedly go down as an unforgettable year for Bayern's Germany internationals. Not only did they lift the Bundesliga and DFB Cup trophies, they also won the FIFA World Cup a couple of months later. Now, Ballon d'Or finalist Manuel Neuer, Thomas Müller and Mario Götze have another accolade to add to that collection: they were the most googled Bayern players in 2014.