The thirteenth place went to Juventus's Pierro from the Italian League.
The twelfth place was Basturk.
In the club, the Bundesliga team he played for, Bayer Leverkusen, had performed very well last season.
With Deng Kai's help, they reached the semifinals in the Champions League and were successful in the league and the German Cup.
In the national team, Basturk led Turkey to a surprising third-place finish in the 2002 World Cup.
This also shows the boost the World Cup gives to the Golden Ball Award.
In this era, this boost was much stronger than later.
In the future, the World Cup, the European Championship, and the Champions League would be on par, with small differences.
But at that time, the World Cup dominated other cups.
The German newcomer, Ballack, was ranked eleventh.
He was seen as the future hope for the German team and Bayern Munich, the successor to Germany's football king, Matthaus.
That's right!
Matthaus was crowned.
