Michael Ballack From Devil to Messiah
Michael Ballack receives flowers from Bayern Munich manager Uli Hoeness during a farewell ceremony before a game against Borussia Dortmund on May 13.
Days later the German midfielder was unveiled as a player for Chelsea FC after joining the English champions on a free transfer.
Ballack celebrates his goal during a friendly soccer match between Germany and the Netherlands in 2005.
Homecoming: Ballack stares out from a 1500-meter-high ad poster on the side of a Hamburg hotel in the weeks before the World Cup.
The Görlitzer-born Ballack has won four German championships with two different teams: in 1998 with Kaiserslauten, and in 2003, 2005, and 2006 with Bayern Munich.
Ballack proved with his teammates in the Confederation Cup last year that German soccer wasn't nearly as comatose as everyone seemed to think. He buried Brazil with a penalty kick in the semifinal (3-2).
Ballack failing to pay attention during a warm-up with the German national team before a test match against Denmark in 2000. Germany lost, 2-1. Ballack spent the game on the bench.
Red devil: Ballack came to FC Kaiserslauten's amateur team from FC Chemnitz in 1997, but ascended quickly to the professional team, where he played 46 games over the next two years.
In the meantime the Bayern Munich star has fathered three kids with his girlfriend Simone.
Ballack protests against FC Chelsea during a Champions League quarterfinal in 2005.
During his stint with Bayern Munich, Ballack was coach Felix Magath's right-hand man. Magath trusted the midfielder's sense of strategy.
When Ballack felt shortchanged on the field, things got loud. Here he shouts at referee Markus Merk after a penalty decision during a match between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund in 2004.
Tragic hero: Ballack celebrates his goal against South Korea at their 2002 World Cup semi-final match in Seoul. He already knew he wouldn't play in the final, though -- a referee had shown him a second yellow card only four minutes earlier.
Reiner Calmund (r.), manager of Bayer Leverkusen, bought Ballack in 1999 from FC Kaiserslautern for 4 million. Under Calmund's guiding hand the young man became a star.
