Michael Ballack anger at failure to stop physical approach

*** It's pretty sure that Ballack will miss World Cup, and obvioulsy he's veeery angry. Piece of news from Times online: ***

Michael Ballack accused Portsmouth’s players of attempting to kick Chelsea off the pitch on Saturday amid fears that he could miss the World Cup.

The Germany captain was due to meet up with his national team-mates today, but has been forced to stay in London while he waits for a scan on the ankle injury sustained in the FA Cup Final.

Ballack’s bruised ankle was too swollen to scan successfully yesterday, although Chelsea’s medical staff do not think the midfield player has suffered a break.

However, ligament damage could rule him out of the tournament and Ballack fears the worst after being out for eight months with an ankle injury in 2006. “I’ve had a few injuries and if you can’t carry on, that’s always a bad sign,” Ballack said. “Sometimes it’s bruising or sometimes it’s a nerve that stops you. I tried to play on but it wasn’t possible.”

Ballack confirmed that Kevin-Prince Boateng did not apologise after his first-half tackle and hit out at Portsmouth’s aggressive tactics. “As you can see, when they start putting in a few hard tackles and don’t get a yellow card, they will carry on,” he said. “If it gets to the point when players are getting bad injuries, then it has to be stopped.

“There were a few tackles before on [Nicolas] Anelka and there was no yellow card. There was another one by Michael Brown on [Frank] Lampard — and from that you can see they just want to kick players. So if you don’t give a yellow card, you can’t stop them, so they carry on.”

The challenge will have done little for Boateng’s popularity in Germany. Having represented the country of his birth at youth level, the 23-year-old recently switched nationalities to allow him to represent Ghana — his father’s homeland — in the World Cup.

Ballack, 33, could have played his last match for Chelsea because his contract expires next month, but is hopeful of signing a new deal after being given reassurance by Carlo Ancelotti, the manager.