VfB Stuttgart — Best pictures!

Two Chelsea teammates, Michael Ballack (pictured right) and Yuri Zhirkov, will cross swords as Germany and Russia battle each other for a World Cup 2010 berth next Saturday.

Germany manager Joachim Low, after all, decided to leave behind the leader in the FTBL ranking of German strikers, Leverkusen’s Stefan Kiessling. Is it because the youngster has never played for the national team and Low is loath to experiment in such

Peruvian striker Claudio Pizarro yesterday grabbed the opener in Werder Bremen’s 2:0 away win over VfB Stuttgart to vault past Sevilla’s Brazil star Luis Fabiano and capture the lead in the FTBL ranking of South American strikers with a tally of 166.37

For Stuttgart’s Russian forward Pavel Pogrebnyak (pictured in a red jersey), the World Cup 2010 qualifier against Liechtenstein on Saturday will be anything but easy: the striker has admitted that he has not forgotten last spring’s game when Russia struggled

Stuttgart goalkeeper and former Germany international Jens Lehmann (pictured) has moved up the FTBL ranking of Bundesliga goalkeepers to capture the 3rd spot despite the fact that his side has struggled in their last three league games.