Unfortunate end
June 19, 2011
Somewhere near Leverkusen, Michael Ballack may be suffering from pains not only to his wounded ego, but to the metaphorical foot in which he shot himself in recent days.
Responding to an announcement by Coach Joachim Löw that he would not play a role for Germany in the future, Ballack accused Löw of practicing "hypocrisy" and perpetrating "farce." He also refused the offer of using an upcoming friendly against Brazil as his testimonial match, and implied that Löw had stabbed him in the back.
Not so, the German Football Association (DFB) was quick to shoot back.
"The coach informed Michael at an initial meeting on March 30, 2011 that he was no longer planning on him," DFB General Secretary Wolfgang Niersbach told the influential mass-market Bild newspaper.
Niersbach added that Löw and Ballack had agreed that the player himself should determine the circumstances of his departure this summer, but that the midfielder, who was on vacation in Florida, had failed to respond to multiple voice-mail and text messages.
Ballack then issued a new press release in response, saying it was his own decision to withdraw from future selection and wondering why Löw and co. couldn’t have waited a few more days to let him return to Germany before going to the press.
For years Ballack was one of Germany's few international superstars, and with 98 caps, he personified an era that saw that the Nationalelf come close to winning both the European and World Cups. But his final drawn-out spat with Löw may go a way toward recasting history’s view of what was a remarkable, if not superlative national career.
A Tiger, not a Kaiser
Ballack won over the hearts of most Germans fans at the 2002 World Cup, when the then 25-year-old was one of the tournament's stand-out players. In an emotional moment, he purposely committed a foul that helped the Nationalelf win their semi-final, even though he knew it would mean he personally would be banned from the final.
The midfielder went on to become captain of the squad. And although he never succeeded in leading the team to a major title, he was its heart and soul - the new millennium's equivalent of Franz "Kaiser" Beckenbauer in the 1960s and 70s, or Lothar Matthäus in 80s and 90s.
But when he went out of last year's World Cup with an injury, and Germany did well under the leadership of replacement captain Philipp Lahm, his days were clearly numbered - especially as Joachim Löw is a big fan of young players.
Many followers of the national side now think that Ballack is a bit of a baby.
"A zero as a human being, and a mediocre athlete with a few exceptional highlights," opined one user on the Bild's Internet football forum. "No one will remember him in five years. A poor man's Effenberg."
Midfielder Stefan Effenberg was dismissed from the national team at the 1994 world cup for giving fans the finger. It's a mark of how much Ballack, once known as "Il Capitano," has damaged his own legacy that he's now drawing unfavorable comparisons with the "Tiger."
Paradigm shift
Ballack's unwillingness to cede his captaincy to Lahm gave Löw no option of keeping him on in an elder statesman role. And it was also a sign that the midfielder failed to comprehend the changing nature of how modern teams function.
Most good teams today - reigning World and European champions Spain are the best example - function without an alpha-male captain bossing around his teammates on and off the pitch.
In replacing Ballack for the 2010 World Cup, Löw split his duties between the media-friendly, boy-next-door Lahm and the more laddish midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, whom Löw termed his "on-the-pitch general."
Hierarchies in football have become more horizontal, with modern players demanding discussions, consultations and explanations rather than blunt orders from above. That will now doubt be the tenor of the Lahm era, which officially began last week.
Meanwhile, his predecessor will be free to concentrate on his club, perennial bridesmaids Leverkusen.
Michael Ballack should have gone down as a highly skilled player willing to take one for the team; one who led Germany through one of the nation's rare relatively fallow footballing eras.
Instead he'll probably be remembered as another petulant diva who refused to acknowledge that every show must someday come to an end.
Author: Jefferson Chase
Editor: Matt Hermann