(I was cleaning out my garage and I found this old blog under some of the deck furniture)
A sad week for one of my favorite all-time German players: Michael Ballack. The German National Team (DFB) coach Joachim Löw officially announced that Ballack’s involvement with the National Team is over: am Ende, Schluß, Fertig, Kaput…
The reason, which we all knew was coming, has to do with his aging legs and, more significantly, the crop of younger players that have established themselves on the team – There just wasn’t room for him any longer as the Euro 2012 tournament approaches. Good for Germany, bad for Ballack.
What makes this story a little worse is that according to the coach, he and Michael had been in open and honest conversations on the topic the whole time, but only this weekend Ballack came out and said no such conversations had occurred, that this announcement was a surprise and an insult to him.
An ugly situation for sure and not a fitting ending to a national career that included second place at a World Cup, third place at a World Cup and second place at a European Championship (as the captain)…most players can only dream of anything even close to those accomplishments. He’s also got 42 goals from 98 international games (aka: caps) and he’s a midfielder! Most out-and-out strikers don’t have that many goals. Two games shy of getting 100 caps is also a disappointment (Beckham’s international career saw him make somewhat of comeback to vault him into the elite 100+ club with 115 caps…and Beckham, a midfielder, only has 17 international goals).
But mixed in with his decade long career, there is a glass half empty story too:
- In 2002 he found himself in the Champions League final with Leverkusen only to get second place (due to a Zinedine Zidane game winner in the hall of fame for insane goals…YouTube it)
- In the 2002 World Cup semi-final with Germany needing a win to advance into the final, Ballack gets a yellow card meaning that should they actually make it to the final, he must miss it… His response: he scores the winning goal. And sadly had to watch the World Cup final on the bench (Germany lost 0:2 to Brazil but without their best field player. Had Ballack played, who knows what would have happened,? I like to think I know)
- In 2008 he again found himself in a Champions League final, this time with Chelsea in a PK extra time shootout. He of course nailed his PK but John Terry tragically miss-hit his and Michael was again in second place.
- In the 2008 European final, as noted above he finished on the runners-up stand (nothing particular to be ashamed about in this, only the second place again).
- In the lead up to the 2010 World Cup, in the last club game of the season, the English FA Cup Final with Chelsea, his ankle is broken from a harsh slide tackle from one Kevin Prince Boateng. His World Cup is over as he was again forced to watch from the sidelines as this new young and fast German team sprinted to third place. Many argued they were better off without him, Der Capitano.
- After the World Cup as Euro 2012 qualifications commenced, his return to form is hampered with yet another injury, this one proving to be too much as the team continued to solidify without him.
But as I said, that’s the bad stuff. In the meantime he’s won plenty of league and cup trophies, was German player of the year a bunch of times and will go down as one of the greats. And not least important, he made a pretty spectacular memory one night in Seattle for a dad and his son.
Vielen dank Michael: we’ll see you next season on the field for Leverkusen.
