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.

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