A relatively unheralded German club reaches the final of the Champions League, defeating the champions of England along the way, with their star player - viewed as the most gifted of his generation by some - already signed by the biggest club in Germany, Bayern Munich, for the following season.
Admittedly, Bayer Leverkusen had less European pedigree than Borussia Dortmund in 2002 and Michael Ballack was perhaps not as technically proficient or as quick as Dortmund's Mario Götze, who is part of a flock of exciting young German players currently playing the game.
Ballack was also looked to as his nation's future but in a much more single-minded way - he was the driving force who dragged them to the 2002 World Cup final, a game in which his presence was sorely missed through suspension as Brazil ran out 2-0 winners.
Still, the parallels are quite similar. The announcements of both players' departures from their respective clubs to Munich came at critical junctures of big seasons for both Leverkusen and Dortmund.
It is odd that such announcements should be made at such a stage in the season, ahead of appearances in the latter stages of the Champions League. While Ballack seemed to announce it publicly himself, it was strange seeing as his Leverkusen were locked in an incredibly tight three-way battle for the title which eventually went down to the wire - Dortmund coming out on top with Leverkusen a point behind and Munich two points further back in third.
As for the announcement of Götze's move, there seemed to be a touch of malice about it as it came literally the day before Dortmund's huge Champions League semi-final first leg clash with Real Madrid. Was this perhaps a deliberate ploy by somebody connected with Bayern to throw their rivals off their game? Or maybe it was simply somebody acting on their own? Either way, Jürgen Klopp wasn't happy about the timing.
While Ballack could only look on as Zinedine Zidane scored one of the most memorable Champions League final goals in history to secure Real Madrid's ninth European Cup, Götze may yet be spared a sterner test of his allegiances when his current team face his future employers on May 25th for the right to be crowned the best in Europe.
The thigh injury he sustained early in Dortmund's second leg clash versus Madrid could yet rule him out of the final, though the club doctor has recently said that the prodigious midfielder has a "realistic chance" of making it.
But should he play, it will spark a question that Ballack didn't face heading into the final - of where Götze's loyalties will lie. Will they be with the team who has nurtured him into one of the most sought-after midfielders in Europe, or with the team who convinced him to ignore bigger offers from the likes of Manchester City and Real Madrid to keep him in Germany? Would he prefer to leave Dortmund as a European champion or to arrive at the home of the European champions?
This isn't to question Götze's professionalism, as of course he would prefer to leave Dortmund with a sense of having done everything he could do with the club he joined as an eight year old boy. However, it is a rare anomaly in professional football that one player should face such a psychological test of his integrity in the biggest club fixture he could hope to participate in during his career.
And despite all the talk of the pending era of Bayern domination now that Götze is following Pep Guardiola into town, this could potentially be the only Champions League final Götze plays in. It would be a shame if that was the case for somebody who is set to smash the transfer record for a German player, but football is a short, unpredictable career and the possibility cannot be discounted.
Michael Ballack found this out to his cost. He joined Bayern Munich at a time when they had just relinquished their hold both on the Bundesliga title and on the European Cup they won in 2001 - his signing was viewed as a way of getting both back. The country's future captain at the country's biggest club.
And while he enjoyed enough domestic success with Bayern during his four seasons there - three Bundesliga titles, three DFB-Pokals and one DFB-Ligapokal - to make up for the almost-triumphs at 'Neverkusen', he never again made it beyond the quarter-final stage of the Champions League whilst in Germany.
An oft-cited penchant for choking in the big European games and the fact that German football was in the middle of the structural remodel which has delivered the likes of Götze and Marco Reus today meant that German football was very much in a period of transition at the time.
It would take a free transfer to Chelsea in 2006 for him to find a way back to a European Cup final - but John Terry's slip in the penalty shoot-out against Manchester United in Moscow in 2008 made it another haul of runners-up medals for the German that season as Chelsea were also beaten by United in the Community Shield as well as by Spurs in the League Cup final, while they finished second to United in the Premier League.
And even then, Ballack had to adapt his game to fit into the Chelsea side. No longer was he the attacking midfielder given the license he had at Bayern to drive at teams - now, he was a holding midfielder, freeing up Frank Lampard to go forward and play his natural game whilst Ballack turned defences around with his precision long-ball passing from deep.
Admittedly, the two players differ in playing style.
Ballack was one-dimensional in the sense that he could only play through the middle of midfield, either as the attacking midfielder he was at Bayern or as the defensive midfielder he was at Chelsea; he possessed the footballing intelligence to be effective in either role but his physical attributes - big, strong but not especially quick yet dynamic when he needed to be - meant that placing him at the heart of games was always they best way to utilise him.
Götze, however, possesses the speed and ability to play on either flank as well as in behind the striker, which suits the incoming Guardiola down to the ground as he likes his front three to be fluid and constantly inter-changing. While Götze is also an incredibly intelligent footballer, he is not somebody a manager is going to use in a more orthodox central midfield role as his attributes are better utilised further up the pitch.
What Ballack and Götze do share is the admiration they drew from fans in their homeland at the time of their respective signings by Bayern Munich. In 2003, Franz Beckenbauer said that of all the players to have been compared to him over the years, Michael Ballack was the closest he had seen, while in 2011 'Der Kaiser' compared Mario Götze to Lionel Messi.
Upon moving to Bayern Munich, both players were/are not only expected to bring major success to the Germany's biggest club, but also to the German national team.
Despite Ballack's international career ending on the long-winded controversy caused by his axing from the team after he missed 2010 World Cup through injury, he amassed 98 caps and finished on the losing side of both the 2002 World Cup final against Brazil (which he missed through suspension) and the Euro 2008 final against Spain (which ended 1-0, the first of Spain's hat-trick of international tournaments).
The Germany of the modern day are much better equipped to do one better and win the country's first international tournament since Euro '96 - and Mario Götze will be at the centre of this attempt alongside other members of his generation, such as Reus, Mesut Özil, Thomas Müller and Toni Kroos amongst others.
Michael Ballack ultimately became his generation's nearly-man. Mario Götze will hope to be his generation's Kaiser.
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