Ballack is the latest casualty in German team

The Bayer Leverkusen midfielder Ballack sustained a calf-muscle injury in training and could not join the team on the flight to Copenhagen on the day.

Others ailing players to withdraw from coach Rudi Voeller's initial 22-player roster were Hertha Berlin's Stefan Beinlich, Dariusz Wosz and Marko Rehmer and Bayern Munich midfielder Jens Jeremies.

But Voeller said: "We should not lament the problems, we must get over it." Voeller told his players to give it all they have in the final match of what has been a mostly poor year for German football. It culminated in a winless elimination from Euro 2000 in June and the positive drug test of designated and now dropped coach Christoph Daum last month.

By that time Germany had won all three games under their new coach Voeller, including a morale-boosting 1-0 at Wembley over England in a World Cup qualifier in early October.

"Our national team had a wonderful start under Rudi. Unfortunately the Daum affair overshadowed the positive image. Without the affair the win at Wembley would have been praised even more," said Bayern Munich vice-president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.

(la/dpa)