A little background information about Germany's star player- Michael Ballack

Ballack was born in a small town in East Germany and, because he was a soccer star as a child, moved with his family to what was then called Karl-Marx-Stadt in 1983. As with all sports prodigies of the old East German system, he was nurtured in a bubble of privilege. He was still a teenager when the Wall fell and East Germany disappeared into the new Germany. Everyone here knows the details of his background and can recite them with ease. They fixate on them. Added to the suspicion about his East German roots, there is the matter of his demeanour. That's what the soccer pundits and experts question.

Ballack is tall, dark and handsome. He is Germany's David Beckham: an icon of style and cool. His face sells products, but his market as an icon is young women who admire his leading-man looks. He still hasn't sold himself to the commentators in print and on television who brood over the German team. To some -- especially, Gunter Netzer, the former player who is now a sort of Don Cherry of German soccer -- Ballack lacks the manly qualities to be a true German leader

Before Ballack ascended to captain the German team, the dominant player was goalkeeper Oliver Kahn, known for his temper and for animal roars at fellow players and for leaving his pregnant wife for a waitress.