Michael Ballack has labelled Joachim Low’s decision to cut Manchester City star Leroy Sane from Germany's World Cup 2018 squad “inexplicable”.
Sane was the surprise member of a quartet of players trimmed from Low’s squad on Monday, with Bayer Leverkusen’s Julian Brandt preferred to the PFA Young Player of the Year.
Low admitted that the race between Sane and Brandt had been decided by a “photo finish” before suggesting that the latter’s performances in training and the Confederations Cup may have swung the issue.
But Ballack, Germany’s star player at the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, was far from convinced by Low's explanation.
“Forget it,” Ballack said. “I can’t explain that. For me there is no photo finish. I can’t see it.
"There’s 23 players in the squad, to say you only see him in the position Julian Brandt is playing - you have to have a fantasy to believe that.
“Brandt is a good, talented player. He made his improvements this year. But he didn’t play on the level that Leroy Sane played. Sane was at a bigger club, with bigger expectations, with better players.
“Nothing against Julian Brandt, but I can’t explain why Low compared the two.”
The numbers would certainly seem to favour Sane. The 22-year-old scored 10 goals and laid on 15 assists in Manchester City’s title-winning season, whilst Brandt had 12 goals and seven assists in all competitions.
However, Sane has so far struggled to replicate his exceptional club form on the international stage, where he has only one assist to his name in 12 caps. That does not come as a surprise to Ballack, who scored 42 goals in 98 games for Die Mannschaft but did not first find the net until his 14th appearance.
Ballack believes Sane’s superior work at club level should have swung Low’s selection in his favour.
“There’s speculation and rumours that there must be something behind the scenes that would explain why such a player isn’t picked,” the Betfair Ambassador said at a Betfair Road to Russia event. “Football-wise you can’t really find arguments not selecting him for the club because he’s a great player, even if he hasn’t always performed in the same way for the national team.
“He’s still young, 12 games he’s played, half from the start maybe? That’s a normal process for a young player if you’re adapting to a big team that have won the World Cup. If you come in as a new player there’s hierarchies, players who want to defend their positions.
"I can imagine it’s not so easy for a young player who makes this huge development to actually do the same in another team. It’s a normal process, you can’t go from zero to 100 for the national team, you need to find your space.
“Jogi Low is well-known for that, he always likes players with experience, who have delivered already in big games. They have their position and if new players come in they have to show they’re better. He hasn’t yet but for me that’s not a problem.
"The daily work at club level should count because when we talk about quality of players, I see someone who did a brilliant job at Manchester City.”
