This article is part of our Greatest Of All Time series. We will be looking back at previous World Cup tournaments and identifying the GOATs within a number of different categories. Part one on the greatest goals is here. Part two on World Cup exits is here. Part three on the best individual campaigns by winning players is here.In this article we’re looking at the greatest individual World Cup campaigns by players who never won the tournament. This doesn’t include great World Cups by players who did win another World Cup — eg, Ronaldo in 1998, Zinedine Zidane in 2002, Leo Messi in 2014. This is purely players who never won football’s biggest prize.Michael Ballack, Germany 2002At the turn of the century, Germany were a feeble side. Their Euro 2000 campaign was so disastrous that it forced the German federation to rip up their youth development system and start all over again, a process that culminated in the World Cup triumph of 2014. At this stage, Germany desperately lacked flair, invention or individual magic — with the exception of one player.Ballack was a very German footballer: physically imposing, consistent, and dominant without being particularly flashy. He wasn’t necessarily the type of midfielder to dictate play, but he was absolutely sublime at bursting into the box to provide decisive contributions. He’d been close to the best player in Europe the preceding campaign. He’d finished one goal short of winning the top goalscorer award in Germany — from midfield — in a campaign when his Bayer Leverkusen side famously came close to winning the treble, but fell short in all three competitions. Ballack would again finish runner-up here.(AFP via Getty Images)In the group stage, he played some lovely inventive passes — he was excellent in the 8-0 thrashing of Saudi Arabia, assisted Miroslav Klose for Germany’s goal in a 1-1 draw against Ireland with a delicious left-footed clip over the top, and then in the 2-0 win over Cameroon, a foul on him by Patrick Suffo put the opposition down to 10 men, before Ballack crossed for another Klose header.In terms of invention, Ballack was quieter in the knockout stage. But he provided the key contributions, heading home the only goal against the United States in the quarter-final, before popping up to provide the finish for the only goal against hosts South Korea. The poetic tragedy was that Ballack had earlier received a booking, which ruled him out of the final.