Ballack was slowly eased into the first youth team, finally making his debut on 4 October 1983, when he came on during a 2-1 win over Motor Ascona Karl-Marx-Stadt. The more games he got into, the more obvious his uniqueness became. Ballack invariably made his presence felt and led the side. He also increasingly became a goal-scoring threat: in only his third season he scored as if there was no tomorrow, 57 goals in only 16 games. At the age of ten, he moved on to a bigger club - FC Karl-Marx-Stadt, later to become Chemnitzer FC.
The young hopeful who moved to FC Karl-Marx-Stadt didn't have to wait long to taste success. In 1988, the gifted technician won the district indoor championships with his new team. Nurtured by coaches Juergen Haeuberer and Eberhard Schuster, Ballack moved up the ranks, winning the indoor title of Saxony in 1991 and finally, three years later, the proper Under-19 championship of the federal state (by which time Karl-Marx-Stadt was called Chemnitz again, the name the city had carried until 1953).
In 1995, Michael Ballack was given his first professional contract, thanks to his impressive silky skills in the role as midfield maestro. Little surprise, then, that he was dubbed the "Little Kaiser", in reference to Franz Beckenbauer. His professional debut came on 4 August 1995, on the first day of the new Second Bundesliga season. But Chemnitzer lost the game 2-1, against Leipzig (Chemnitz's equaliser, incidentally, was scored by Silvio Meissner, today a player with VfB Stuttgart), and that more or less set the tone: at the end of the season, during which Ballack made fifteen appearances, Chemnitz were relegated to the multi-tiered, regional third division. For Ballack himself, however, that season held one great success: on 26 March 1996, he made his debut for Germany's Under-21 side.
In the following season, Ballack became a regular first-team player and almost helped Chemnitzer to bounce straight back. He didn't miss a game and scored ten goals for the "Sky Blues". It wasn't enough for Chemnitzer to go up, but Ballack managed to win his own, personal promotion: in the summer of 1997, he joined 1. FC Kaiserslautern, who had just returned to the top flight.
On the back of his strong performances for Chemnitzer FC and Germany's U21 side, Michael Ballack was lured to Rhineland-Palatinate's (Rheinland-Pfalz) premier club, 1. FC Kaiserslautern, by coach Otto Rehhagel. This was a great opportunity for the youngster: Kaiserslautern promised to be a fine platform for his talents, since the club had just been promoted back to the Bundesliga.
It was during the seventh game of the 1997/98 season, away to Karlsruher SC, that Rehhagel decided to throw young Ballack into the Bundesliga for the first time, if only for the final five minutes of the encounter. On 28 March 1998, Ballack found himself in the starting line-up for the first time - the opponents were Bayer Leverkusen, and the novice was given the crucial job of marking playmaker Emerson, his future team-mate, out of the game.
Ballack made sixteen appearances for his new team during the season and thus played a not-too small part in Kaiserslautern's sensational triumph - the club became the first-ever newly promoted team to lift the league title. In the following season, Ballack became both a regular (he made 30 appearances, scoring four goals) and one of the side's leading players. Kaiserslautern reached the quarter finals of the Champions League, but were knocked out by Bayern Munich.
On 1 July 1999, some two months after his first full international, Ballack moved to Bayer Leverkusen at the age of 22. He still had a year left on his contract with Kaiserslautern, which is why Leverkusen paid a transfer fee of 8m deutschmarks (€4.8m).
It was at Bayer Leverkusen that Ballack made his big breakthrough. Coaches Christoph Daum and Klaus Toppmöller granted him the whole of the pitch as his sovereign territory. With Bayer, he was the attacking midfielder in front of Carsten Ramelow-the holding player, and was the man who pulled the strings in the centre of the pitch, making late runs into the opponents penalty box and also the reliable finisher upfront. In his three seasons at the BayArena, he scored 27 goals in the league and a further nine in Europe.
In 2000, Bayer needed only a draw against minnows SpVgg Unterhaching to lift the league title, but a stunning own goal by Ballack sunk the club. However, by the time he left the club he had developed into one of Europe's best midfield players. He left Leverkusen after a memorable, if ultimately heartbreaking, 2001/02 season when they came second in the Bundesliga again and were beaten in the UEFA Champions League and German Cup finals (he and four other teammates were even runners-up in the 2002 World Cup). Ballack finished with 17 league goals, and his remarkable season led to him being voted into the uefa.com users' Team of 2002 as well being named Germany's Footballer of the Year.
After joining Bayern Munich in a €12.9m deal in 2002, Ballack had to adapt to a more defensive role but still managed ten goals as Bayern stormed to the Bundesliga title. He also scored twice in the 3-1 German Cup final win against Kaiserslautern.
After a trying second season with the Bavarian giants, Ballack was back to his best in the 2004/05 season as Bayern Munich completed another double. New coach Felix Magath said he was the only automatic starter in their midfield.
In four seasons at Bayern, Ballack won three Bundesliga and German Cup doubles and scored 47 goals in 135 matches. Between 1998 and 2005, Ballack had notched up 61 goals in his domestic league. However, Ballack was criticized for constantly choking in important UEFA Champions League matches as well as regularly looking for a big international move instead of proclaiming loyalty to Bayern. He drew heavy flak from Franz Beckenbauer and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, and during his final match for Bayern, he was jeered throughout the stadium by Bayerns' supporters.
Ballack agreed to join Chelsea on a Bosman transfer on 15 May 2006. During his last season as a Bayern player there were rumours of interest from Manchester United, Real Madrid and AC Milan, but Ballack instead chose to go to Stamford Bridge on a lucrative three-year-deal.
After debates in the media as to whether Ballack and Frank Lampard could play together in the same team, Chelsea manager José Mourinho confirmed that he was not worried about the players' compatibility.
Ballack's world class qualities were mentioned by Jose Mourinho. The Chelsea boss has said of Ballack regarding the players qualities "For me he's one of the best players in the world, maybe only Lampard is better. He's very intelligent, tactically very strong and he scores a lot of goals. Michael and Frank in the same team would be a dream pair."
--Wikipedia
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