Matt Hughes
All players enjoy returning to clubs where they had success, but Michael Ballack has additional reasons for looking forward to Bayer Leverkusen's Champions League tie away to Chelsea on Tuesday.
For the first time since hobbling away from Stamford Bridge on crutches 16 months ago, he will be freeted with universal warmth and affection, emotions absent in Germany as a result of an unseemly
soap opera that has divived the country.
Ballack will return to Chelsea a changed man, who, if he has been slightly diminished as a player because of recurring injuries, has grown as an individual after a harrowing year in his professional
and personal life.
The 34-year old has come to term with his brutal axing by Germany - which, after 12 years' national service, he learnt of in a press release issued by the German FA (DFB) when he was on holiday - but
the scars of a marital break-up will take longer to heal.
There is sadness in his eyes when he is asked to rake over the recent past and flashes of frustation are revealed when he disturbs the locals by smashing a macaroon down on the table to make a point
in a trendy Düsseldorf café.
Most telling of all is that he can no longer bring himself to watch the matches of national team he represented 98 times and inspired to
reach World Cup and European Championship finals.
Not even on television.
Ballack's dramatic decline from national icon to bit-part Bundesliga began when sustained an ankle injury after a dreadful challenge from
Kevin-Prince Boateng in the 2010 FA Cup Final between Chelsea and Portsmouth. The Germany captain was immediately ruled out of the World Cup, triggering a national debate over his future that raged
for more than a year.
Philipp Lahm, the stand-in captain, made a public pitch for his job during the tournament in South Africa, but it took until next June
for Joachim Löw to relieve him of his responsibilities, despite frequent suggestions from Ballack that he would retire if he was not
in the coach's plans.
Given the nature of that terse press release, it was almost restrained of Ballack to dismiss the offer of a testimonial match against Brazil last month as a "farce". Ballack is not a bitter and
twisted former international, but simply has an old-fashioned belief in doing things properly.
To illustrate, in more than a decade of interviewing footballers, he is the only one to have phoned ahead to say sorry for running 15 minutes late, an unexpected courtesy that was followed by more
profuse apologies when he arrived on the dot of the appointed hour.
The obvious class which he dominated midfield battles all over Europe for more than a decade is also evident off pitch, if not in the corridors of power at the DFB in Berlin.
"It still hurts that I don't play for Germany anymore, but it's not like it was eight weeks ago," Ballack said. "I'm still not happy, that's true. It's not secret, I've talked a lot about it. The really
frustrating thing is that I never got a chance, especially in the national team.
"After the injury, things happened that I didn't expect. I learnt a lot from it, but I'm not angry. I only get angry with the people who
are close to me. I'm not angry because these people can't hurt me anymore. It could be better for me personally, but that is life."
Ballack's life has changed as a stellar career that yielded so much silverware - five Bundesliga titles, a Premier League crown, three FA Cups and the heartache of two Champions League runners-up medal
as well as those from the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2008 - has began to wind down.
He has started only one for Leverkusen this season and is likely to be on the bench at Stamford Bridge next week, but he insists that he did not consider retirement during a turbulent summer when the
falling-out with Low was at its height.
Bild, the German tabloid, ran a poll asking readers whose side they were on, with the result somewhat suspiciously deadlocked at 50-50.
"I always knew I had to come back," Ballack said. "I was unlucky because kicked by two players and got injured twice, but that can happen in football and has nothing to do with age. If you've been
injured, it's easy to talk, but you have to get back on the pitch.
"My life has changed because I'm in a different position. The pressure of playing for Germany is really, really high, so if you don't play anymore you don't have that.
"I see things differently now. For all those years I was always in the front row with all the pressure and the focus, but now I'm enjoying the other site a little bit. I'm still playing at a high
level, but I'm not in the first line anymore."
Ballack is equally forthright when discussing his four years at Chelsea, who chose not to renew his contract after his Wembley woe, against the advice of Carlo Ancelotti, the manager at the time.
Although he was injured for much of last season with Leverkusen after breaking down again in September, Ballack was missed by Chelsea, whose small squad suffered from the economies imposed by
Roman Abramovich, the owner, and Ancelotti paid the price for ending the season without a trophy. "I don't know if the injury changed their mind, you'd have to ask them," Ballack said.
"One thing I definitely know was that Carlos wanted me to stay. He told me in a few meetings before and afterwards that he wanted me, but the club wanted to go a different way.
"Chelsea still a lot of experienced players, but what's more important is the quality. I played a long time for big clubs and ambitious clubs.
"Over the last 12 years I finished 11 of them in first or second place in the league, where I played which means I played in very good clubs and must have had some quality. They didn't just miss my
experience."
It is a measure of Ballack's high standards that he feels that he Chelsea underachieved during his time at the club, although he believes that, unlike for himself, the Champions League will not
elude them forever.
"Chelsea should have won more trophies with their squad because the quality is there," he said. "The ambition was there and you can see what the club has spent on players.
"Changing the manager every year did not help, but you cannot expect to have a situation like Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United. The
Champions League may come to Chelsea when they're not expecting it.
"For me it's another thing, as it will be much more difficult to win the Champions League with Bayer Leverkusen. I tried to win it 12 years in a row with different teams and you have to be realistic.
I'm not playing for the national team anymore so I'm not going to win the World Cup, at least not as player!"
The job of a national coach is a long way off, even for a man of Ballack's drive and ambition, but it is reassuring to know that,
despite his trials and tribulations, this Anglophile German has not lost his sense of humour.
[Der Rest befasst sich mit Ballack's Hoehepunkten und Tiefpunkten (die kennen wir ja alle) + Chelsea's Ausgaben in den letzten 8 Jahren und ist hier irrelavant]
The Times Printausgabe 09.09.2011
