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Name:	Michael Ballack
Nationality:	German
Date of Birth:	26/09/1976
Height:	6' 2" (188cm)
Weight:	13st 5lbs (85.0kg)
Previous
Clubs:	Leverkusen, Bayern Munich, Kaiserslautern
Position:	Midfielder

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An ankle operation before the climax to the 2006/07 season denied Michael a place in the FA Cup winning side but he had made a mark in Chelsea's earlier triumphant Carling Cup Final, slipping the perfect pass through for Didier Drogba's important equaliser against Arsenal in Cardiff.

 

That was a high point in a season of acclimatisation for the German international captain. Another was the extra-time FA Cup semi-final winner against Blackburn that sent Chelsea to the new Wembley and although Michael's seven goals from midfield was lower than his seasonal average, his overall contribution frequently drew commendation from José Mourinho.

 

Just one week after the close of the previous season, Chelsea announced our intention not to sit on the laurels of back-to-back championship wins when we signed the biggest name in the German game.

 

By the end of that summer, added to Michael's arrival were the purchases of Andriy Shevchenko and Ashley Cole.

 

'One thing is to build a team around two or three world class players,' explained José Mourinho at the time of the Ballack signing.

 

'It is a very different thing to have already a world class team and add two or three world class players.

 

'Now we are champions for consecutive years, we want to be more than that and the first step is two or three players to join the special team we have to make it even better.'

 

Before he could put on a Chelsea shirt, Michael performed the most momentous task that can be asked of a footballer - to captain his nation in a World Cup held in his homeland.

 

Despite niggling injury problems and a blank entry on the scoresheet, he was still able to whet the appetite of Blues fans with his vision, technique, supreme passing and time on the ball as Germany exceeded initial expectations.

 

A senior figure in a young German team, Michael was born in the pre-reunification East Germany where he started his professional career at Karl-Marx-Stadt FC, the club changing name to Chemnitz FC after the fall of the Eastern Bloc.

 

He became an Under 21 international whilst there before moving up the ladder to Bundesliga club Kaiserslautern in 1997.

 

He made 16 appearances in an historic first season - his new club becoming the first newly-promoted outfit the win the German league.

 

Aged 22, Michael became a full international and soon made a move to Bayer Leverkusen where his career truly began to take off, culminating in the 2002 Champions League Final.

 

Bayer lost out to Zinedine Zidane and Real Madrid but the team's inspiration in midfield won the first of three German Player of the Year awards.

 

His country's biggest club, Bayern Munich, came calling that summer and Michael moved for £12.9m, winning his second Bundesliga winners' medal in his first season in Bavaria.

 

He then scored twice in the German Cup Final to make it a double success.

 

That double triumph was repeated two seasons later and then again the next year, his last one in Germany.

 

As tradition demands for German internationals, Michael has been a part of strong World Cup campaigns.

 

It was his two goals that took his team through the quarter- and semi-final stages at the Japan/South Korea 2002 event but a booking in the semi, earned selflessly attempting to preserve the lead, meant heartbreak as he was forced to sit out the Final versus Brazil.

 

In 2006 in Germany it was late goals by the Italians that denied a Final appearance.

 

When he decided to leave Bayern Munich on a free transfer prior to that World Cup, he could have taken his pick from Europe's finest clubs. However the English Premier League had long appealed.

 

A dangerous header of a ball and comfortable shooting and passing with either foot, he arrived at Chelsea with a goal scoring record pushing one in every two games for both club and country.

 

Eventually, his ankle injury kept Ballack out for eight months, long enough to prevent him from any Champions League action at the group stages.

 

He returned as a sub in the Carling Cup quarter-final win over Liverpool, assisting Shevchenko's 90th minute strike.

 

A week later Ballack again appeared as a replacement, and struck his first of the season with a curling, powerful free-kick. He also won a penalty in a 4-4 thriller.

 

Awarded the captaincy three days later, in the absence of Terry and Lampard, Ballack inspired the second half comeback at Fulham, winning and firing home a penalty.

 

His return to fitness was particularly timely, given the departure of other key players for international duty in Africa, and in the second half of the season he will be looking to make up for lost time.