An Obituary to a Great Career

Michael Ballack Retires from Professional Football

Michael Ballack’s retirement from professional football has gone down without a lot of fanfare. Rather unfair this, as here was a man who bridged across 2 eras of German football and at times held it up solely on his muscular shoulders when the European powerhouses threatened to slip into a chasm of mediocrity. Make no mistake – German football was in a crisis in the early noughties. The era of Klinsman, Mattheus and Bierhoff was over. Bayern Munich lynchpin Effenberg was at odds with the national team. To make matters worse, there was that night of terror in Munich when Michael Owen ripped apart the old enemy in a 5-1 thrashing. At this time, we in India read about a young man from Bayer Leverkusen named Ballack who was scoring an extra-ordinary number of goals from his midfield position. A naturally gifted shooter off both feet , strong in the air and a penchant for the odd tasty challenge in defence, Ballack was to remain the engine room for the German national team for the entire decade. 

2002 was his Annus Mirabilis. His Leverkusen team defied all odds to reach the Uefa Champions league final where they were taking the fight to the aristocrats of European Football, Real Madrid. That is till Zinedine Zidane decided to take matters into his own hands and unleash that left footed volley from the edge of the box. However, the performance of his team had catapulted Ballack to superstar status, and he lived up to his billing in the ensuing world cup. His crowning moment came in the semi-finals against South Korea where he scored the winner however the game would prove bittersweet as just before his goal a yellow card for a tactical foul had ensured that he would miss the final. There is still speculation on how the final would have panned out had his enforcing midfield presence been there – as it happened Brazil cantered home thanks to a Ronaldo brace but German football had found its newest superstar, and essentially the first since the Klinsman-Mattheus days.

A rather injury curtailed latter half of the decade, first with Bayern Munich and then with Chelsea probably denied him from fulfilling all of that early promise of 2002. However, a national team return of 42 goals from 98 international appearances is an outstanding result for a midfielder. Much more acclaimed strikers have poorer strike rates. Add to it a World Cup runners up and a third place finish along with league titles in Germany and England and the baby-faced German easily slots in as one of the classiest players of the previous decade.

The national team of today , with the likes of Schwienstieger, Muller,  Goetze and Ozil have been predicted to accomplish great deeds – however this team might never have been realised had they not emerged through that evolutionary bottleneck of the early noughties, where at times the national team seemed synonymous with the name Ballack. Hats off to a great career!

The Cup of Dreams

Memories of a Legendary Ryder Cup

The 2012 winning European Team

Pretty much everything that could conceivably be written has been done before , during and after that incredible Ryder Cup at Medinah. Adding my humble words would just like adding a dollop of sugar over the perfectly iced cake. However, I cannot - not write at least something before the emotions wear down. So here goes – my memoires of not just the greatest Ryder cups yet –but one of the more compelling sporting occasions I have ever witnessed.

From the opening tee on Friday till Tiger’s (eventually immaterial) missed four footer in the shadows of Sunday ,  a encyclopaedia could possibly be compiled on the variety of facial expressions. Ian Poulter, of course, would hog a good few chapters in this. I don’t know if it was Arsenal’s defeat against Chelsea that inspired this ardent Gunners fan, or the Sevie spirit ‘in the sky’ message or just the genes that he’s been born with. One of the early comments I heard on Friday was the the Europeans have 4 world number ones in their squad – Rory McIlroy who’s the current No. 1 , Luke Donald and Lee Westwood , the past number ones and Ian Poulter , who always feels that he should be number one. On the evidence of his Saturday and Sunday play , who would disagree? It’s a bit too much to attempt to decipher his single greatest contribution to the event was, but I’ll settle on that remarkable serial birdie finish on the Saturday fourballs – a spectacle which gave his teammates hope and planted that seed of doubt in the till then dominant and supremely confident Americans’ minds. Westwood summed it up perfectly – “For 2014 , the European qualifying for the Ryder Cup will be different – 9 automatic spots , 2 captain’s picks and Poults.” I've never seen Sevie play this event - even his genius and passion could not have been too far ahead of the fiery Englishman.

Poulter: The Look that Killed

The precocious McIlroy wasn’t in the best of form over the first  days , but perhaps all he needed was a miscalculation of his tee time – arrive 8 minutes before – hit a few practice putts , munch a roll –and a few hours later pocket a point for Europe ....easy as you please. Justin Rose- that putt on the 17^th deserves a place in golfing immortality....Martin Kaymer – where have you been for the past 2 years lad ? Paul Lawrie , making mincemeat out of the hottest player on the circuit , Fed Ex Champ, Snedekar – who writes these scripts ??

Oh you poor Americans....what were you thinking on Saturday...actually , Mr Love....what were you thinking Saturday afternoon by benching the ‘jalapeno’ partnership of Phil-Bradley. Sure – Bubba was a great choice for one of the early matches...but surely even an inconsistent Tiger Woods should have been one of the early tee-offs. The aura of Tiger is not yet lost ....and he is still a fearsome beast in one-on-one golf. The best putter in America (Stricker) faltered horribly...while Mr “Nice Guy” Furyk maintained his unblemished record of choking over the home-stretch in events in 2012.

The Iconic Message in the Sky

Sport ,in most cases, follows the expected script – occasionally , the unexpected makes for great viewing – and once in every few years , the seemingly unthinkable and all but mathematically impossible happens : Boston 2004 – Headingly 1981 – Kolkata 2001 – Istanbul 2005 – Miracle on Ice “Lake Placid” . The 2012 Ryder Cup belongs right up there – an absolute privilege to have witnessed a rare iconic moment in sport written in front of you. Is there anything left to view this year in sport that would match this emotion – well – the baseball post season is starting , and the St Louis Cardinals and David Freese look like they might be able to secure another backdoor birth...hmm.

P.S. : In the midst of this historic weekend - I heard that India had beaten Pakistan in a T-20 match somewhere.