Comments on: Weekly Dose 08.09.07

By: Jan

Jan — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 02:26:06 +0000

Chris: Ballack couldn’t have filled any of the two open spots. Chelsea couldn’t meet the UEFAs demands to have a certain amount of homegrown players in the squad and had to leave those two spots, that were reserved for them, empty (btw: no other CL team had to do this). I would like to see Ballack leave Chelsea but I’m not sure this will actually happen. I would love to see him play alongside Frings at Bremen, but I don’t think they could finance a player like him and I doubt Bremen is part of Ballack’s career plan.

Tina: Real Madrid have recently distanced themselves from signing Ballack:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2007/09/05/sfnche105.xml

Although, they did so by saying that they wouldn’t be willing to match his Chelsea salary. They didn’t say they had no need for him. So maybe if Ballack agrees on a salary cap he might indeed move to Real. But there’s still some months left until this will become a relevant issue.

By: tina

tina — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 19:39:54 +0000

i guess he’s going to REAL MADRID in January. hopefully this is NOT true.

http://www.people.co.uk/sport/football/tm_headline=ballack-off%26method=full%26objectid=19758710%26siteid=93463-name_page.html

By: chris

chris — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 14:38:18 +0000

I’ve never been a big fan of Ballack, but I do have to stay, if he stays mum about this and keeps his disdain to himself then I will earn a lot of respect for him. If that was me I would be raising hell in the media and making sure everybody knows how idiotic it was to not only leave 2 spots open, but leave 2 spots open with one of the best midfielders in the world at their disposal. I’ll be shocked if he isn’t moved in January.

I say he goes back to Bayern and they form the unquestioned favorites for next year’s CL.