Departing Chelsea veteran Michael Ballack has told Frank Lampard and Liverpool's Steven Gerrard to check their egos at the door for England.

The German has now told the pair they will have to make "sacrifices" and not worry so much about scoring themselves, but he is convinced they can combine successfully.

"Gerrard and Lampard should be intelligent enough to make it work," Ballack, a team-mate of Lampard for four years before being released by Chelsea this week, told The Times.

"They've had problems before, but have to pull their egos back for the good of the team.

"They can't just play as they do for their clubs as they both want to get forward and are a little bit similar. If they pull back a little bit, they can make it work easily.

"If you play for a big team you are surrounded by good players, so you can't just think 'me, me, me!' all the time.

"You have to make sacrifices. It would be a shame if they weren't smart enough to work it out. I would love to have one of them in the German team, never mind two."