Michael Ballack: "I'm not going to budge one inch"

Michael Ballack verpasste mit Chelsea die Meisterschaft nur knapp© Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP Photo

Although Grant has loosened Mourinho’s tactical shackles, a new tactic hasn’t yet become visible. His substitutions are strange and he seems lackadaisical. We’re in the finals of the Champions League, that’s what counts in football.

The "Daily Mail" likened Chelsea to a "cartoon train where everyone is hitting each other over the heads with frying pans but stopping just often enough to keep the locomotive on the tracks". Really?

And fans repeatedly chanted, "You don’t know what you’re doing" in the manager’s direction. Chelsea’s success, and this is our point of view, is based on a show of strength by the players who counterbalance the lack of a plan with their individual class and passion. That’s your interpretation of our success.

And what’s yours? Our style of play is different to that of Manchester, our game has a tremendous energy. If our team could get some fine-tuning then things would look good for the next couple of years. As a team we’re still in a development stage.

I beg your pardon? When Philipp Lahm recently told stern magazine that the newly formed team of Bayern Munich needed more time, we thought that was understandable. But Chelsea? You have to understand that the club has only been playing at this high level in Europe for a few years. And as yet it hasn’t developed the typical Chelsea style. You have to win titles, titles, titles. That’s the only way to start a tradition.

Is that at all possible? Many fans regard Chelsea as no more than a plaything for the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. We have to work to win their favour. You do notice the envy, but after all it’s the same in other clubs. The only difference is: Roman Abramovich was one of the first to invest his own private fortune into a football club. But look at Manchester United, Liverpool or Manchester City - they have the same structure of ownership. That’s the reality in the strongest league in the world.

When did you last talk to the club’s boss? That was in March, after the final of the Carling Cup.

Chelsea lost that match, you were brought in late in the game, and the manager was harshly criticized. Did Abramovich ask to meet you? I wasn’t the one who asked for an appointment.

What did you talk about? About football, of course. He has the goal of making us the best team in Europe. And so I assume that if we beat ManU in Moscow then Roman Abramovich will be a very happy man.

Speaking of happiness. We heard that you plan to marry your girlfriend Simone, the mother of your three sons, very soon. Is that just a rumour? It’s true. We’re planning to get married this summer.

But before you do that, you first have to make the German fans happy at the Euro 2008. Will the dip in form that many players experience after being sidelined with injury, coincide with the European Championship? I’ve worked hard to regain my fitness and I have enough strength to last the Euro 2008.

You sounded the alarm just before the international match in March, saying the situation was serious. And then the German team beat Switzerland 4:0. Is the situation still serious? No, it’s not that. It’s just that we’ve only played two matches this year. We don’t yet have a sense of our standard of performance, but that goes for all other nations too. We were a dominant team after the World Cup and yet we played with an ease that has gone missing recently. We all need more bite and more patience.

What does the team structure feel like compared to the World Cup side two years ago? Luckily, Torsten Frings has returned to the team, but Bernd Schneider with all his experience will be sorely missed. Christoph Metzelder hasn’t played for Real Madrid in months so we’ll have to wait and see whether he’ll be fit in time. If one or two vital players drop out then it will be difficult to compensate. And in our squad we don’t have the same breadth as Italy or France, for example. All the same: If all the players are on the ball, then we’ll be among the top teams.

That is something you never would have said two years ago. We’ve worked hard under Joachim Löw to assert that claim. At the time, just before the 2006 World Cup, I said: Just once it would be nice to go into a tournament as one of the joint favourites. And now it looks as if we are.

Experts say that your first couple of opponents are good as a warm-up. I don’t see it that way at all. And I can’t understand why so many people say that. For us as a team it’s an entirely new situation to be able to say we have to pull it off. And by the way, the Croatian team says it’s the favourite in our group.

Really? Of course. And Croatia really is a strong team. Even Poland is better than at the World Cup.

But Austria shouldn’t be much of a problem for the German team, should it? I hope not.

Fans still remember with horror the match against Austria at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina. Germany lost the match by 3:2 and had to go home. There’s no threat of another Cordoba this time, is there? Look at how the Austrians ran rings around us and the Dutch team for 45 minutes. You can only say: Let’s hope they can’t keep that tempo up for 90 minutes. Their willingness to run, their hunger, and the home field advantage – that makes them dangerous opponents too.

So, for the record: The German team will once again have us hanging on the edge of our seats. Especially since you yourself have yet to win a game at the European Championships. No. (Laughs) Just like no other German national player has in the last twelve years. It’s high time we changed that.

Interview: Rüdiger Barth