Arsenal superstar Mesut Ozil announced that he no longer wants to play for the national team. He played a key role in Germany’s 2014 World Cup winning campaign but this year, like the entire team, he failed to shine and Low’s men failed to go past the group stages.
The attacking midfielder was involved in controversy after taking a picture with Turkish president Erdogan and yesterday, the 29-year-old came up with a comprehensive reply in which he criticized the media, the sponsors and most notably the DFB.
German source Bild analyzed the statements made by the playmaker and came up with just one conclusion i.e Ozil criticized everyone and everything but not himself. They state ‘His message: only one (person) made no mistakes – ME, Mesut Özil’.
Regarding Erdogan, Bild state that under the reign of the Turkish president, freedom of expression has almost ended and that is not the case in Germany.
Regarding media, the German outlet claim that not even a single media platform made any comments about Ozil’s dual roots and this is something that the player has invented himself.
Regarding sponsors, Ozil claimed that he was going to do promotional videos for DFB sponsor Mercedes, however, after the photo with Erdogan, they took him out of the campaign. Bild claim that his picture with Erdogan has got nothing to do with the sponsor’s decision.
Ozil particularly criticized DFB president Grindel, who opted to talk about the player’s controversial picture instead of focusing on the team’s poor performance at the World Cup.
Opinion:
If Ozil’s argument is biased and totally in his favor then Bild’s argument is also biased and totally against him. The former Real Madrid player’s picture with the Turkish president was definitely ill advised but his rage and annoyance is justified.
At the World Cup, the entire German squad failed. Low took responsibility but Bierhoff and Grindel focused on Mesut Ozil.
Bierhoff told Welt that the player should have been left out of the WC squad:
“We never forced any player of the national team to do something, but we always tried to convince them. We haven’t succeeded with Mesut. That’s why we should have thought about leaving him out from a sporting point of view.”
Ozil has been the most important player in the team. He has won five German Player of the Year awards and it would have been wrong to leave him. For the first time in his senior career, at a major tournament, he was dropped against Sweden at the World Cup.
On the other hand, Grindel told Kicker:
“It’s true that Mesut has not commented yet, which has disappointed many fans because they have questions and expect an answer, and they rightly expect that answer”
Germany deserved to lose against Mexico, they did not deserve to beat Sweden and were deservedly beaten by South Korea. Ozil created seven chances (Squawka) from open play against Korea but not even one was converted.
The situation could have been handled better by the player but he is just a footballer, the situation should have been handled better by the DFB. Ozil might never play for Germany again and it will not be shocking if Grindel loses his position.
