Michael Ballack was forced to take leave during the training on Wednesday; this one was closed to the public and media. It was the first time he had to cancel training since suffering a right calf strain in a 3-0 warm-up win over Colombia on June 2.

The 29-year-old midfielder is still laboring under a calf injury and will be receiving further intensive treatment, a spokesman for the German Football Federation (DFB) said.

With the hopes of a nation on his shoulders, Ballack cautioned in a newspaper interview earlier in the day against hoping too much from a German team he called inexperienced and mistake-prone.

The fitness of Ballack will go a long way towards determining the success of the team but the success of the month-long tournament will hinge in large part on how well German police deals with threats of violence.