Michael Ballack (born
September 26, 1976 in Görlitz, then East Germany) is a German football
player. He will play for Chelsea in the English Premier League from the
start of the 2006-07 season.
Personal Life
Ballack is 6' 2 ½" (189 cm) tall and weighs 179 lbs (80 kg). He and his
girlfriend Simone have three children - Louis, Emilio and Jordi.
Career
He will play in central midfield for Chelsea in the English Premier
League following his departure from Bayern Munich and for Germany, which
he has captained since 2004. Ballack was transferred to Bayern Munich
from Bayer Leverkusen on 1 July 2002, for an undisclosed amount. Before
that, he played for Kaiserslautern. On 15 May 2006 he announced that he
had joined Chelsea on a Bosman at a press conference in London.
Ballack is known for being a versatile and well-conditioned player,
equally at home in attack and defence, able to play in almost any
position in midfield. He made his name as an attacking midfielder with
an eye for goal, but Bayern have recently employed him in a deeper role,
where he has been able to direct play.He also has a first class
free-kick-taking ability which in many cases has been proven unbeatable
for international keepers. He is regarded as one of the most lethal
headers in the world but is equally competent with his powerful left and
right feet. These attributes have earned him the German player of the
year award on three occasions (2002, 2003, 2005), a feat surpassed only
by German legend Franz Beckenbauer, who won the award four times. Some
experts consider him the most complete footballer in the world today.
Since 2004, he has been one of Germany's leading sports icons and the
captain of the German national team, which is seeking World Cup glory on
home soil.
Chemnitzer FC
Michael Ballack started his career with BSG Motor "Fritz Heckert"
Karl-Marx-Stadt ('BSG' stands for Betriebssportgemeinschaft). His
parents sent him to train with the side when he was seven years old, and
he immediately caught the attention of coach Steffen Hänisch, who had
played second-division football himself in East Germany. What
particularly impressed Hänisch was Ballack's delicate touch, which the
coach would have attributed to many years of training if the boy hadn't
been so young. Also unusual for his age was Ballack's ability to use
both feet with equal authority.
Ballack was slowly eased into the first youth team, finally making his
debut on 4 October 1983, when he came on during a 2-1 win over Motor
Ascona Karl-Marx-Stadt. The more games he got into, the more obvious his
uniqueness became. Ballack invariably made his presence felt and led the
side. He also increasingly became a goal-scoring threat: in only his
third season he scored as if there was no tomorrow, 57 goals in only 16
games. At the age of ten, he moved on to a bigger club - FC
Karl-Marx-Stadt, later to become Chemnitzer FC.
The young hopeful who moved to FC Karl-Marx-Stadt didn't have to wait
long to taste success. In 1988, the gifted technician won the district
indoor championships with his new team. Nurtured by coaches Juergen
Haeuberer and Eberhard Schuster, Ballack moved up the ranks, winning the
indoor title of Saxony in 1991 and finally, three years later, the
proper Under-19 championship of the federal state (by which time
Karl-Marx-Stadt was called Chemnitz again, the name the city had carried
until 1953).
In 1995, Michael Ballack was given his first professional contract,
thanks to his impressive silky skills in the role as midfield maestro.
Little surprise, then, that he was dubbed the "Little Kaiser", in
reference to Franz Beckenbauer. His professional debut came on 4 August
1995, on the first day of the new Second Bundesliga season. But
Chemnitzer lost the game 2-1, against Leipzig (Chemnitz's equaliser,
incidentally, was scored by Silvio Meissner, today a player with VfB
Stuttgart), and that more or less set the tone: at the end of the
season, during which Ballack made fifteen appearances, Chemnitz were
relegated to the multi-tiered, regional third division. For Ballack
himself, however, that season held one great success: on 26 March 1996,
he made his debut for Germany's Under-21 side.
In the following season, Ballack became a regular first-team player and
almost helped Chemnitzer to bounce straight back. He didn't miss a game
and scored ten goals for the "Sky Blues". It wasn't enough for
Chemnitzer to go up, but Ballack managed to win his own, personal
promotion: in the summer of 1997, he joined 1. FC Kaiserslautern, who
had just returned to the top flight.
1. FC Kaiserslautern
On the back of his strong performances for Chemnitzer FC and Germany's
U21 side, Michael Ballack was lured to Rhineland-Palatinate's (Rheinland-Pfalz)
premier club, 1. FC Kaiserslautern, by coach Otto Rehhagel. This was a
great opportunity for the youngster: Kaiserslautern promised to be a
fine platform for his talents, since the club had just been promoted
back to the Bundesliga.
It was during the seventh game of the 1997/98 season, away to Karlsruher
SC, that Rehhagel decided to throw young Ballack into the Bundesliga for
the first time, if only for the final five minutes of the encounter. On
28 March 1998, Ballack found himself in the starting line-up for the
first time - the opponents were Bayer Leverkusen, and the novice was
given the crucial job of marking playmaker Emerson, his future
team-mate, out of the game.
Ballack made sixteen appearances for his new team during the season and
thus played a not-too small part in Kaiserslautern's sensational triumph
- the club became the first-ever newly promoted team to lift the league
title. In the following season, Ballack became both a regular (he made
30 appearances, scoring four goals) and one of the side's leading
players. Kaiserslautern reached the quarter finals of the Champions
League, but were knocked out by Bayern Munich.
On 1 July 1999, some two months after his first full international,
Ballack moved to Bayer Leverkusen at the age of 22. He still had a year
left on his contract with Kaiserslautern, which is why Leverkusen paid a
transfer fee of 8m deutschmarks (€4.8m).
Bayer 04 Leverkusen
It was at Bayer Leverkusen that Ballack made his big breakthrough.
Coaches Christoph Daum and Klaus Toppmöller granted him the whole of the
pitch as his sovereign territory. With Bayer, he was the attacking
midfielder in front of Carsten Ramelow-the holding player, and was the
man who pulled the strings in the centre of the pitch, making late runs
into the opponents penalty box and also the reliable finisher upfront.
In his three seasons at the BayArena, he scored 27 goals in the league
and a further nine in Europe.
In 2000, Bayer needed only a draw against minnows SpVgg Unterhaching to
lift the league title, but a stunning own goal by Ballack sunk the club.
However, by the time he left the club he had developed into one of
Europe's best midfield players. He left Leverkusen after a memorable, if
ultimately heartbreaking, 2001/02 season when they came second in the
Bundesliga again and were beaten in the UEFA Champions League and German
Cup finals (he and four other teammates were even runners-up in the 2002
World Cup). Ballack finished with 17 league goals, and his remarkable
season led to him being voted into the uefa.com users' Team of 2002 as
well being named Germany's Footballer of the Year.
Bayern Munich
After joining Bayern Munich in a €12.9m deal in 2002, Ballack had to
adapt to a more defensive role but still managed ten goals as Bayern
stormed to the Bundesliga title. He also scored twice in the 3-1 German
Cup final win against Kaiserslautern.
After a trying second season with the Bavarian giants, Ballack was back
to his best in the 2004/05 season as Bayern Munich completed another
double. New coach Felix Magath said he was the only automatic starter in
their midfield.
In four seasons at Bayern, Ballack won three Bundesliga and German Cup
doubles and scored 47 goals in 135 matches. Between 1998 and 2005,
Ballack had notched up 61 goals in his domestic league. However, Ballack
was criticized for constantly choking in important UEFA Champions League
matches as well as regularly looking for a big international move
instead of proclaiming loyalty to Bayern. He drew heavy flak from Franz
Beckenbauer and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, and during his final match for
Bayern, he was jeered throughout the stadium by Bayerns' supporters.
Chelsea
Ballack agreed to join Chelsea on a Bosman transfer on 15 May 2006.
During his last season as a Bayern player there were rumours of interest
from Manchester United, Real Madrid and AC Milan, but Ballack instead
chose to go to Stamford Bridge on a lucrative three-year-deal.
After debates in the media as to whether Ballack and Frank Lampard could
play together in the same team, Chelsea manager José Mourinho confirmed
that he was not worried about the players' compatibility.
Ballack's world class qualities were mentioned by Jose Mourinho. The
Chelsea boss has said of Ballack regarding the players qualities "For me
he's one of the best players in the world, maybe only Lampard is better.
He's very intelligent, tactically very strong and he scores a lot of
goals. Micahel and Frank in the same team would be a dream pair."
International Career
Shortly after signing professional terms with Chemnitz, Michael Ballack
first pulled over the famous white shirt with the eagle badge. On March
26, 1996, he stood in the starting XI for the national U21 team's
encounter with Denmark. In all, he played 19 matches for this side,
scoring four goals. Then, following his move to Kaiserslautern, national
coach Berti Vogts called him up to the senior team.
Ballack's first appearance, however, wasn't made until April 28, 1999,
by which time the man in charge was Erich Ribbeck. Germany was playing
Scotland on that day, and Ballack came on after sixty minutes to replace
Dietmar Hamann. Bizarrely, the Bremen floodlights failed during the
course of this match, yet this didn't turn out to be a bad omen for the
rest of Ballack's international career.
Euro 2000 wasn't a bright spot for Germany (Ballack only played 63
minutes at this tournament), but the World Cup two years later in Japan
and South Korea became a glorious tournament for the country - and
primarily for Ballack. Until that time, he wasn't without his detractors,
because he suffered the fate every exceptional player has to live with:
as soon as Ballack put in a performance that wasn't of the highest
class, he came under criticism from the press, while a great game was
considered normal. But the World Cup became a triumphal procession for
Ballack. His three goals against Ukraine won the qualifying playoffs and
made sure Germany would go to Asia, where he again proved to be the
player who made the difference. Only his goals separated Germany from
the USA and South Korea during the knock-out rounds and sent his side to
the final. But what the experts lauded even more was his last-gasp
effort to stop an opponent from scoring in the semi-final - in so doing
he risked a yellow card but still didn't shy away from the tackle. That
proved his leadership qualities. In the end, he was booked indeed and
had to sit out the final.
Following Euro 2004, Jürgen Klinsmann replaced Rudi Völler at the helm
of the national team and made Ballack the side's captain. He'll thus be
the man to lead the team - on and off the pitch - in its attempt to
reach the ultimate goal, winning the World Cup on home soil in the
summer of 2006. In a warm-up in his home country, Ballack scored the
fourth goal in the 4-1 thrashing of the USA in late March 2006 to
prepare for the World Cup in Germany.
In his first 60 internationals, Ballack found the net 29 times. He wears
the famous number 13 jersey of Germany which was previously worn by Gerd
Müller and Franz Beckenbauer.
In the 2006 FIFA World Cup he was unable to start in Germany's first
game against Costa Rica due to a calf strain, but appeared in the second
game against Poland.
