Despite the national team going through a poor spell by their standards, due in part to the leading clubs such as Bayern choosing to bring in established foreign imports rather than developing young local players from their Junior team, Germany unexpectedly reached the 2002 FIFA World Cup Final – Bayern's representatives were defender Thomas Linke, midfielder Jens Jeremies, forward Carsten Jancker and goalkeeper Kahn, who won the Golden Ball as the tournament's best player, the first in his position to win it and also the first from the club, eclipsing the heroes of the past generation in that respect. Germany's other star in 2002 was Michael Ballack who transferred to Bayern from Leverkusen immediately after the tournament. Despite a good scoring rate for Bayern, Élber was not selected for the Brazil squad which won the competition.