"These are values I don't support": Michael Ballack lashes out at former national coach Joachim Löw

According to Ballack, who was very critical of Löw, the "months that followed" were particularly difficult. "Because, of course, I found it unfair, let me be very clear about that! For me, the way the national coach treated me, or rather didn't treat me – that is, didn't communicate with me."

As a result of his injury, Ballack not only missed the World Cup, but also lost his captain's armband to Philipp Lahm, who made it clear after the tournament that he did not want to relinquish his newly acquired responsibility. Ballack felt it was unfair that Löw did not intervene in this matter: "It wasn't Philipp Lahm acting alone. That's what I meant by unfair. Those are values that I don't represent. Nothing happened, and that disappointed me so much! (...) I wasn't even given the chance to get back in."

Löw had remained tight-lipped in the public debate at the time and only informed Ballack in July 2011, around a year after the World Cup, that he was no longer planning to include him in the national team. "I would simply have liked more open communication from Jogi Löw. (...) Then, out of respect for what I achieved for the national team over the previous ten years, he should at least have told me to my face."

Ballack subsequently turned down a farewell match against Brazil offered by the DFB. Instead, he organised his own farewell match in March 2013, to which he somewhat surprisingly also invited Löw and Lahm. However, according to Ballack, there was never any discussion: "For me, it was simply disappointing at the time. I demanded it, but Jogi Löw evaded the issue back then! I think he wanted to leave himself a back door open. So he kept putting it off."

Ballack played a total of 98 times for the German senior national team. In 2002, he was runner-up in the World Cup, and four years later, Germany secured third place in the World Cup on home soil. He played his last international match before his serious injury in the 2-1 defeat to Argentina on 3 March 2010.