The family of football legend Michael Ballack is in mourning. A road accident proved fatal for his 18-year-old son, Emilio Ballack.
According to the police, the young man died around 2 am on Thursday. The tragedy happened in Troia, south of Lisbon, near a house that his father, the great footballer, bought years ago.
Attempts to save the young man at the scene were unsuccessful as he unfortunately died on the spot. Details of the fatal accident have not yet been made public.
The body of the 18-year-old was sent to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in the city of Santiago de Cacem in the south of the country for an autopsy.
Emilio was one of Ballack's three children with ex-wife Simone Lambe. He was born in 2002, a year after the eldest son, Louis, and three years before the youngest, Jordi.
Ballack has been active with clubs such as Bayern Munich, Bayer Leverkusen and Chelsea, as he played 98 games (42 goals) with the German national team. The 44-year-old retired from professional football in 2012 and is regarded as one of Germany's greatest footballers of all time.
This news has shocked the whole world of football and not only, who have expressed the most sincere condolences to the legend of Germany and his family.