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Michael Ballack is confident his injury suffered against Russia on Saturday is not as bad as first feared.

The German international went down after taking a blow to the ankle from Chelsea team-mate Yuri Zhirkov in the first-half of Germany's 1-0 win over in Moscow.

It was thought at the time that the midfielder would have to be replaced but the 33-year-old played through the pain to complete the 90 minutes.

Ballack admitted that his ankle felt uncomfortable during the match but was confident he could recover in time for Wednesday's clash with Finland.

"It is not that serious as we had thought," he told ZDF.

"During the match it was pretty much aching, but afterwards it was not. It is pretty fine now, though.

"I believe I could be ready for the match on Wednesday, thankfully it was not a big thing."

The 1-0 win in Russia secured Germany's place at next summer's World Cup finals in South Africa and head coach Joachim Low admitted he could freshen his team up for the Finland match.

"We have achieved what we were looking for, we will be in South Africa next summer," he stated.

"The match against Finland has now become somewhat of a valuable test and I can well imagine making some changes in the first team as we have not got too many chances to experiment until next summer."