Mourinho puts Ballack to the test
Duncan Castles
Sunday September 9, 2007
The Observer
Jose Mourinho will offer Michael Ballack a final chance to resurrect his Chelsea career if the Germany midfielder responds well to being left out of the club's Champions League squad.
Reduced to selecting a maximum of 23 senior professionals by Uefa's new 'three plus three' homegrown player rule, the Chelsea manager has removed Ballack from his squad list for the competition's group stage. Officially, Ballack was omitted because 'at the time of the squad submission deadline, [the club] could not guarantee his availability for the majority of the group phase games'.
Mourinho's intention, however, was to challenge Ballack to accelerate his recovery from an ankle injury that has frustrated both himself and the Chelsea medical staff. He believes the German will respond in one of two ways - either push himself to prove Mourinho wrong, in which case the midfielder will be available for selection again, or sulk at his omission, which will make it easier for the coach to leave Ballack on the sidelines and ultimately move him to another club.
The pair's relationship has been fragile since April when Ballack had a piece of bone removed from his ankle by Germany national team doctor Hans Muller-Wohlfahrt without first informing the coach. Mourinho had expected to have Ballack available for the Champions League semi-final against Liverpool, and initially called for the player's contract to be cancelled.
Ballack subsequently demonstrated that the operation had been necessary and his injury misdiagnosed by Chelsea's doctors, but required further surgery in the summer and has not trained since. While the player has felt well enough to play golf recently and resumed jogging last week, Chelsea have been unable to set a definite date for a return to first-team duty as the player continues to suffer unexplained pain in his wound.
Over the close season, Mourinho made it clear that Ballack stands last in line for a place in his revamped midfield four. Having defended the player for the majority of a problematic first season in English football, he was prepared to offload him to Real Madrid in the transfer window. According to Madrid coach Bernd Schuster, that move was stymied because of Ballack's £121,000-a-week wages and his representative's demands for a seven-figure agent's fee.
Chelsea have since said that they have no plans to sell Ballack in the January window, while Roman Abramovich is understood to have been unaware of Ballack's omission from the Champions League squad until after its announcement. The club's owner is thought to be unimpressed by the dropping of a player who was the joint-highest-paid individual at the club last season.
The decision has also been questioned by Germany coach Joachim Low, who will request a meeting with Mourinho after this week's Euro 2008 qualifier against the Republic of Ireland. Low will first meet in Cologne with Ballack, who went back to Germany last Thursday to allow Muller-Wohlfahrt to re-examine his ankle.
Life is more straightforward at Arsenal, where Arsene Wenger last week signed a three-year contract extension taking him through to the summer of 2011. There are no get-out clauses in the deal, which includes an immediate pay rise to £4m a year. The Arsenal manager said that the unwavering support of the club was a key to his commitment to them.
'I have had many moments when I have felt down because we have lost a big game but I never ever had any doubts that I did not have the support of the club,' said Wenger. 'When I first arrived many people talked badly about me and I never had the feeling that there was any lack of trust or support from the board. I have never felt disappointed on that front. As for all the rest well you are ready to suffer and work very hard for your success.'
Fifa and the IOC have told England's women they will not be eligible to qualify for the 2008 Olympic football tournament in Beijing by finishing as one of the top three European countries at this year's World Cup, as is open to the other four European teams competing, writes Anna Kessel. In the event of England finishing in the top three European teams, they will have to forfeit their place.
The issue relates to Article 5.1 of the regulations of the Olympic Football Tournament Beijing 2008, which states that an association affiliated to Fifa may only participate providing there is a national Olympic committee in the respective country. The problem for England of course is that the BOA represents Great Britain, not England.
The British Olympic Association expressed disbelief at the decision, having been given assurances by Fifa last May that this would not pose a problem.
In the interim no issues were raised by Fifa until the letter of July 2007 sent to all European FA's outlining Fifa's latest interpretation of Article 5.1. The BOA have appealed against the ruling and on Friday were waiting anxiously for the IOC to broker a decision with Fifa ahead of the World Cup tournament, which begins tomorrow, but it was to no avail.
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2165480,00.html
What 'test'? If Ballack performs well for Chelsea in the next few months, he'll most probably will be match fit very soon (a matter of a few weeks tops), Chelsea can't play him in the CL group stages regardless, as Honigstein correctly pointed out in the article I posted earlier in this thread.
What an utterly retarded move, by an arrogant c**t of a coach, 'punishing' his player for the mistakes of his neanderthal doc who still keeps fucking up (diagnosis and rehab), not his first fuckup mind you, and definitely not last.
Whatever, Ballack has only himself to blame for a) moving there in first place, and b) not moving this summer. He has to deal with the consequences.
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