Foul makes Ballack a 'tragic hero'

Associated Press Thursday, June 27 – Online Edition, Posted at 10:13 AM EST

Yokohama, Japan — Germany is in the World Cup final thanks to a player who won't even take the field again, suspended for a necessary evil in soccer: the professional foul. It's when a player, determined to stop a possible goal, hacks down an opponent with no eye for the ball, a type of foul well known throughout World Cup history.

Star German midfielder Michael Ballack joined a long list when he pulled down South Korea's Lee Chun-soo just outside the penalty box in the semi-finals. Ballack earned his second yellow card of the knockout round for the foul and an automatic suspension for the next game — which he made sure was the final. Four minutes later, he scored the winning goal for the second consecutive game, and instead of being criticized for the foul, he got nothing but praise. "The whole of Germany should take its hat off to him," German coach Rudi Voeller said. "He knew he'll be out of the final, but he still did it. He had to do it; it was a tactical foul. He did a great service to his team and to Germany, and not only by scoring goals."

FIFA, which has promoted a fair-play campaign for 15 years, even made Ballack the game MVP.

His professional foul was just the latest of many at soccer's world championship. In the 1982 semi-final, West German goalkeeper Harald Schumacher ran at full speed and crashed feet and fists first into France's Patrick Battiston, who was trying to score the game-winner on a breakaway. (Wrong, see the pictures page. It was full bore, certainly, but not fists first, but whole body at Battiston's head). The French player was carried out on a stretcher with a broken jaw and needed oxygen. The play wasn't even called a foul, and West Germany won the semi-final in Seville, Spain, on penalty kicks.

At the 1966 World Cup, the great Pele, already injured, was manhandled so badly by Portuguese defenders that he became a nonfactor in the game. Portugal went on to beat Brazil 3-1.

In the 1980s, one of Argentina's toughest defenders, Daniel Passarella, warned FIFA about the professional foul, and over the past decade world soccer's governing body has promoted fair play on the field.

Despite being called a hero, Ballack was devastated by having to miss the World Cup final, crying in the locker room after the game. "Thanks, now you got me out of the final," Ballack shouted at Swiss referee Urs Meier, the ref told Swiss newspaper Blick.

Germany plays Brazil in the final on Sunday night in Yokohama. "It was a stupid situation. They were outnumbering us in their attack and I had to do it," Ballack said later. Voeller's words of praise were echoed throughout the German press. "Tragic hero," Wednesday's newspapers wrote, from the mass-circulation Bild to the ever-so-serious Frankfurter Algemeine. "This is a good example how our team works," goalkeeper Oliver Kahn said.