Is it a foregone conclusion that Barcelona are going to win the Champions League final?

Not at all. We’ve seen a few finals of late where an outsider has been pitted against a favourite, and this is the same even though Juventus are a big name, a club with a huge tradition, and a massively experienced team. They kicked out Real Madrid in the semis, which nobody expected, and to do that over two legs is more difficult than beating Barcelona in a one-off game. Of course Barcelona, on paper and given the form they are in, would look like big favourites. But with the type of game they play, and with Juventus staying deep, Barça might get annoyed after a while if things aren’t going their way. There are a lot of questions with this match. People suggest the betting is done and it’s Barça’s trophy, but I’d be careful. Italian teams always know how to get a result. Anything is possible in Berlin.

So Juventus, such a clever, streetwise team, may be the perfect side to nullify Barcelona?

I’m sure they won’t give them space. Juve will not play an open game but will know that there will be periods in the match, and opportunities, where they can attack themselves and play high up the pitch. They might initially think their best opportunities will come from set-pieces, particularly as I don’t see them being particularly strong on the counterattack. But they can hurt Barcelona, even if their first task is to shut them out.

Have you ever seen anything like that Barcelona front three? They have 120 goals between them this season …

No. It’s an outstanding trio. I’ve never seen three players up front in the same team like that. Bayern Munich have Arjen Robben, Franck Ribéry and Robert Lewandowski, who are amazing when they’re in good shape. Real have Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema, even if Cristiano tends to dominate. But Barcelona’s are all absolute superstars. It says a lot that all three’s national teams rely on them as well: Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. That tells you everything about their quality.

Given that firepower, are there any real weaknesses in this Barcelona side which Juventus can hope to exploit?

Of course they have weaknesses. Most obviously in terms of their defence: remember Bayern Munich scored three goals in the second leg, so they’re clearly vulnerable. And their biggest strength can also become a weakness. Those three forwards are all superstars. They are a little bit like divas sometimes when you see them: they don’t like to defend. So it will be interesting to see how Juventus can create unhappiness in their game. These kind of players like to have the ball, they want to play, they want to enjoy movements, to pass the ball around. If Juve makes sure that can’t happen, as the game goes on they’ll become more and more frustrated and they can lose their discipline. That’s the key. That’s the time where Juventus must take over because an Italian team never loses discipline. Their players live for and thrive off this discipline.

Is that discipline orchestrated by Andrea Pirlo in the middle?

Partly, but it’s not just down to Pirlo. I’ve played a lot of games against Italian teams and I’ve always found them the most difficult to confront. Matches against sides from Serie A can be unattractive at times because the Italians are so shrewd. Tactically, they are schooled from such a young age in Italy, so it’s not just Pirlo who organises their game. All the players, when you play for an Italian team, are capable of adapting to circumstances. You might look at Italian football, and see it has been so long since they had a side in the latter stages of this competition, and be surprised to find Juventus in the final. But they are a clever side who have been building up to this moment.

Michael Ballack can only watch as Real Madrid’s Zinedine Zidane scores the brilliant winning goal to defeat Bayer Leverkusen in the 2002 Champions League final at Hampden Park. Photograph: Gerry Penny/EPA

One of the players whose progress has been so marked over recent years has been Paul Pogba. As a former midfielder, can you offer an assessment of the France international’s recent progress?

He’s good to watch, a player with his physical ability, getting into the box, scoring goals, doing an amazing job everywhere on the pitch. They have two players like this, actually, with Arturo Vidal [the other]. You need this kind of player in your team, particularly alongside someone like Pirlo who maybe does not run quite as much. When you consider that, it shouldn’t be a surprise to see them in the final – they have midfielders of this kind of talent who hold the entire team together, players at the peak of their physical fitness. Pogba is a great talent.

How good could he get?

Well, he’s already playing for a big club. On the other hand, there are probably a few bigger names in world football at the moment. But he’s young and he is growing fantastically at Juventus. The environment is good for him, for his mentality. But, as a player, you are a little bit restricted in Italian football. Individually, I don’t think we will see him at his best in Italy. If he plays in Spain, Germany or England, maybe we’ll see even more from Pogba, depending on the team he chooses in the future. There’s still room for him to grow. He’s not the finished article as yet.

Their attacking focus is Carlos Tevez, a player you came up against while he was at West Ham, Manchester United and Manchester City. Is he as much of a nuisance to play against as he appears from the outside?

It’s a joy for any coach to have a player like him in your team. He creates trouble. He spreads anxiety and chaos in the opponents’ defensive organisation, drifting from left to right, going everywhere on the pitch, dropping back into midfield. I don’t see him at his best as a No9. I like him dropping back a bit, getting at Sergio Busquets in this game. With the ball at his feet, he’s able to go past two or three players, and has the strength to run 30m with the ball. He is very smart around the box. His Argentinian blood helps him. He takes the hits and everything that comes your way when you’re in there among the defenders, and that’s why he must be a joy to play with and so horrible to play against.

Ballack is consoled by Chelsea’s assistant coach Steve Clarke after the penalty shootout defeat to Manchester United in the 2008 Champions League final in Moscow. Photograph: Sergey Ponomarev/AP

You played in two Champions League finals, with Bayer Leverkusen in 2002 and Chelsea in 2008. As a player, how do you cope with the build-up to a game of this magnitude? Do you realise you are facing a potential career-defining moment?

Absolutely. You can’t escape that. It’s a bit strange: you reach the final, the biggest game you can play except for a World Cup final, and everything comes at you from the outside. You have friends, the media, everyone wanting something from you in that fortnight between the semi-final and the final. And all the time you know there’s just one more step to go. One more step to achieve a dream. That means there’s a lot going on in your head, so you have to have strong nerves, and a good environment laid down by the club and the coach. Experience is important because, if you’re all reaching a final for the first time, the nerves would hurt you.

So, given the rather frenetic buildup, is it a release when you get on the pitch?

Yes. Actually, it starts with the warm-up in the stadium the day before. That is a release of tension in itself. The training sessions leading up to the final tend to be really intense but the closer it comes to the game, the more tense you get in terms of your mind. Maybe some of the players don’t sleep well, and that might influence their performance on the day. What is happening in the players’ heads is a big part in football. You lean on the experienced members of any team to get you through it, guide you. In this game there are a lot of players, on both sides, who have already lived moments like this with their clubs or their national sides. It will help them remain as calm as possible.

And post-match? You lost both those finals, to Real Madrid and Manchester United. How did you cope with the disappointment?

It does take time. You leave the pitch after the final and you want the next season to start immediately. Or at least something to provide a distraction. In 2002 I changed clubs, after three years playing for Bayer Leverkusen. I had had those three disappointments over the last three weeks of the season – losing the title to Dortmund, the domestic cup final to Schalke and then the Champions League final to Real – but I moved to Bayern Munich which helped me a lot in the head. It was a new challenge, a new environment, and new targets. In football, if you have a big break after a disappointment you can stew on things, and that hurts you. If you’re playing for a big club like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich or Chelsea, the chances are another opportunity will come your way, even the next year. But, from my perspective, it’s not easy. I played in the Champions League constantly for 12 or 13 years in my career, and I reached only two finals. I know how difficult it is to get to that point.

You came so close with Chelsea in Moscow, when you lost to United on penalties. But the following season you missed out in the semi-finals after the infamous second leg at home to Barcelona when the referee, Tom Henning Ovrebo, appeared to deny your team clear-cut penalties which might have won the tie. How did you deal with that?

It still hurts. We were even stronger that year than in 2008 when we’d reached the final. Everyone had this conviction, this trust in the team, and we believed in ourselves. We knew we were really strong and were convinced would win that year, so to go out the way we did was really disappointing. We deserved to get through to the final. We were much better than Barcelona on the night, and everyone knows the circumstances. It still feels unbelievable. At least Chelsea went on to win it eventually [in 2012]. It would have been nice to have won it with them that year, if I’m honest. I played in two finals, but that [2008] feels like the opportunity where I missed out.

Pep Guardiola has missed out in this competition since joining Bayern Munich, even if his team remain dominant in the Bundesliga. How is he considered back home these days? Are people satisfied with the impact he has made?

There is criticism, and questions are being asked about Guardiola. But it would be difficult for any coach to take over after a Champions League victory and simply maintain that. A new coach comes in with a new mentality. In his case, he imposed a Spanish influence on his new club. He’d been used to playing a certain kind of football at Barcelona – where he’d played and developed his coaching – and if you have been successful with that philosophy, you want to carry on in that way. He had players at Barça who bought into it. But to transport that into Bayern Munich, where the players were used to playing a totally different kind of football? Well, that’s not easy. Is it even possible to transport that kind of football?

Do you think it is?

Well, I’ve seen a few fantastic performances this season and last. They’ve scored so many goals. Sometimes it was just a question of how many they’d score today. They had no real competition at home and a lot of opponents gave up before matches against Bayern, speaking about how many goals they’d lose by before kick-off. You could see the class of the team. He brought also Thiago and Xabi Alonso in, players he knew and who could help impose that Spanish influence. But even someone like Guardiola needs a bit of time and luck to make it work. For his methods to be properly adopted and understood. You can’t do that overnight, and two years is still overnight. The problem is he, like any manager at Bayern Munich, is judged on success. If you don’t win, there’ll be questions. And he is judged at the highest level: winning the Champions League. He knows this.

Do you expect him to be there next season?

Bayern Munich couldn’t have a better coach than him at the moment. I can’t see another coach teaching that team more than he is. They still dominate German football. It is a case of having another go, and we will see how he handles the pressure next season. It’s a bit harder if you’re abroad, without the people around him who he had in Barcelona, but there’s a lot of football knowledge at that club. Even in Germany, they know he’s great.

If there’s disappointment in Germany at not having a Bundesliga team in the final in Berlin, there’s a lot more in England that the Premier League clubs bowed out so early this year. What did you make of that? Were you surprised by Chelsea’s exit in particular?

It surprised me, yes, with all the English clubs but Chelsea in particular because I thought, on paper, they were the better team in a tie with Paris Saint-Germain. But that just shows how close the Champions League is these days. Teams like PSG, Atlético Madrid or Porto were not really mentioned as contenders, but they can upset the bigger teams at any stage. They can hurt you. I thought it would be a difficult tie, a tight tie like last year, but these are the kind of games where individual players like those at Chelsea should be able to decide those games. That they didn’t means there’s still a lot to do to improve at that club to get back to where they were a few years ago in terms of European competition.

So do we have to gauge Chelsea’s progress next season in terms of how they do in the Champions League, given they have won the Premier League so comfortably this year?

They are in a process still. A team can have quality but it’s also about personality and how they can grow. Look at the Chelsea from 2004-06, when they were champions of the Premier League for the first time in the Roman Abramovich era, and see how that team evolved. Individually, and personality-wise, it needed a bit of time to grow up to make its real mark in Europe. It’s the same at all clubs: Barcelona put a structure in place, a philosophy, and players grew into it and did well. Those same players helped the Spanish national team to dominate as well, winning the World Cup and European Championship. At Bayern Munich, a group of players won the Champions League and then went on to win the World Cup, where a lot of Bayern players were involved. All these projects need time to grow.

So Chelsea are still a work in progress?

I think those games against PSG showed that, sometimes, you miss two or three key players to secure this success. They make the difference in certain types of games. It’s all about the players. When I see Nemanja Matic, a great talent, he needs a player next him to help him grow further. A team-mate with stature as well as personality. They have a lot of small, skilful players but sometimes they miss bigger, stronger players around them. They are probably one or two big players short of where they want to be. It’s one or two years too early. If they bring in or develop one or two players with this talent, this attitude, this personality on the pitch, they will get back to the top in terms of European football and competing properly to win the Champions League again.

You will be in Berlin working with MasterCard. How do you see the final playing out?

It would be great for Italian football if Juventus could win it. I didn’t think they’d get through against Real Madrid, but they did and now they will believe they can go all the way. It will be tight, but I will go 1-0 for Juventus.

Michael Ballack has been unveiled as the 2015 MasterCard Player Mascot Manager for the Uefa Champions League Final in Berlin. MasterCard is an official partner of the Uefa Champions League.