Mesut coming out of his shell?: Page 94 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Mesut coming out of his shell?

jones

Burnwinter wrote:
For the rest of your argument to fly you really need a working pundit who hands down week by week analysis that's better than Cox's.

I really don't, because there aren't any. I think we're pretty much on the same page, I just added that while I think he's a relatively good football writer (i.e. better than most in his line of work) he's not that good at analysing, i.e. to give the forum example again there are a few posters here who I reckon understand the game better than he does or at least go further in their breakdowns

y va marquer

There's nobody on this forum as cool and detached as Cox and there's nobody bar perhaps Tim Bob, or Patters back in the day, who generally as spot on in their analysis.
We have great posters on here, but there's too much group think and bias confirmation for any analysis that hits the same standard as Mr. Cox's.

jones

Can't say I'm surprised that you disagree 😆 I disagree that there's too much group think here, in fact I think there's a healthy amount of discord on a number of players and topics. On the contrary I think Cox is the one who rarely goes against the grain (not always wrongly of course but in certain cases definitely)

For the rest of the post, I listed a few examples out of many why I think Cox' analysis is, while rarely wrong, usually insufficient or shallow. Can't argue though with what's considered "cool" I guess

y va marquer

We're in the high temple of group think and confirmation bias 🙂

A few standout squabbles regarding one or two players but there's a large dollop of agreement on the limited number of Arsenal centric topics discussed.

For me the analysis I appreciate most involves the re-framing of views and shifting perception.
I think Cox does that very well.
I'm not a fan of what I consider to be laboured, forensic, unnecessarily lengthy breakdowns of what I see as an essentially simple game.

Burnwinter

Yeah, nah. Here's his last Arsenal vs City analysis from right on ZM, it's very thorough relative to the other stuff that tends to circulate.

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2015/01/19/man-city-0-2-arsenal-impressive-defensive-performance-from-arsenal-earns-fine-victory/

Re-reading that's a decent way to preview tonight's match actually.

Cazorla was also superb – scoring the penalty, assisting the second, showing some wonderful control in midfield but also getting stuck in, and helping to protect the defence. This was an all-round midfield performance, one of the best individual displays of the season, and shows Cazorla can play this withdrawn role as expertly as his usual, Silva-esque position.

Also somewhat undermines the idea Cox hasn't credited Cazorla's defensive contribution ... he's a good writer.

y va marquer

He does some very neat scouting reports prior to all of our games too 🙂
He is the best 😆

jones

Burnwinter wrote:
Also somewhat undermines the idea Cox hasn't credited Cazorla's defensive contribution ... he's a good writer.

That was just one example from one article. I'm not going to dissect all of his articles to find weaknesses in his examinations; I've read ZM and its German offshoot since their inception and I think they're both actually good websites. I also agree with the idea that a good analysis should shift the reader's perception or at least showcase another perspective, but with Cox that simply rarely happens for me. If one feels football is a simple game his pieces might do that for you.

Think I've stressed my opinion enough on this, we should return to the original topic at hand. Don't forget you're not mods anymore, I'll neg-rep you into oblivion if you guys keep the off topic posting up 🙂

Rohit

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/football/article4646065.ece

‘Zidane never did tricks for the sake of it, he just wanted to play a clever game. That’s what I’ve tried to do at Arsenal’

All the humility that Mesut Özil shows in putting the team first, focusing on selfless assists rather than the glory of scoring goals himself, was nurtured by strong, principled parents. All the balance and beauty that defines Arsenal’s graceful playmaker was developed on a hard, pebble-strewn surface in Gelsenkirchen. The shaping of Özil, a World Cup-winner and one of the most-acclaimed players of the Barclays Premier League season, started in the old coal-mining region of the Ruhr.

An hour in Özil’s enlightening company at London Colney on Saturday reveals a footballer with principles, who still plays the game and lives his life to the values demanded by his parents, who had little money but plenty of love and advice for their four children.

“My parents gave me the right principles, so I didn’t get carried away,’’ Özil says. “They always told me to be down to earth, that I was not special. They told me always to be nice to people. They said: ‘You maybe have the ability to be a football star but it doesn’t make you better than your brother and sisters. Respect each other. Be together’. That’s how I grew up. It’s a cultural thing.”

He attends a Mosque in London and prays daily. “I’m a religious person,” he says. “I grew up like that with my family. For me it is important that I pray. I pray on the pitch. I’m not doing this to show people I am Muslim, or that I’m a believer, I do it for myself. It’s about my faith. At Arsenal, all the team give me respect. They respect my religion. I respect their religions.

“There are some similarities with Berlin but there’s no place as multicultural in the world as London.”
He goes into town, appreciating the capital’s many cultural and culinary charms. “Footballers are still humans — we have to enjoy life.” he says. “People are asking me for autographs or pictures, but it’s a part of my life I’m used to. I try to live my life as I want to. I go to the cinema, restaurants, with friends, just leading a normal life.”

A normal life. His upbringing forged a strong social conscience manifested in his foundation. Last year, Özil started inviting disabled children to Arsenal games. He invited children with cancer to his private box at the Emirates Stadium. During the World Cup in Brazil, Özil funded German doctors to go into villages in the Amazon and operate on children with cleft palates. They started with 11 operations. After the final at the Maracana, Özil told the doctors: “Let’s do more.” So another 23 children had their lives transformed. Özil’s doctors are now in Africa.

“I want to help people in need but I don’t want people to know I’m doing it,” he says. “Usually I don’t like talking about it. I come from a background where you don’t show off the good things you do. It’s modesty. My aim is helping kids. Kids are the future. I love children. I’m thinking of my own childhood. I know where I’m from. If I wanted something, I couldn’t get it. Life wasn’t easy. Things I didn’t have in the past I try to give to kids. I know how it feels not to have things. We were poor but we had enough food to eat. It was a big family, four kids, and it was not like you could just go and buy something. But we had the essentials, the food.”

Özil and the rest of Arsène Wenger’s squad are using today’s match against Manchester City to raise funds for the Arsenal Foundation. Each player donates a day’s wages and fans are being encouraged to go on the club’s website to give too; £220,000 was generated last season, the money supporting UK-based charities such as Bob Wilson’s Willow Foundation and global organisations such as Save The Children, building pitches in refugee camps in Iraq.

Özil takes an interest in all the causes, and a discussion about pitches takes him back to his childhood. It was on the unpromising pitch near his Gelsenkirchen home that Özil learnt how to beat opponents, how to hone techniques learnt from watching Zinédine Zidane on television, and develop the gifts and mentality that have made him a world champion.

“I used to play eight to nine hours of football a day,” he says. “I used to go to school and finish at 1.30, then quickly go outside to the pitch where I grew up with all my friends until 5.30, training with the local team. After training normally we came back and played more on the pitch.”

He would practise Zidane’s techniques and turns. “Zidane was one of my idols, a player I looked up to and learnt from and I wanted to do the same as him,” he says. “When he did tricks, I wanted to do the same. I always admired Zidane. He was a very down-to-earth person. I watched how he did his passes. He didn’t do tricks for the sake of it. He never wanted to show off. He just played a clever game. He’s the player who decides games. I watched his technique and tried to do that in my game, and a lot of times it worked.

“I never knew you could make money from football when I was younger. People always said, ‘you are super-talented’ when I was 15 or 16 but I never realised it could be a career. I just loved playing. After 16, I realised for the first time after finishing school that I could even make money from my passion. Wow.”

He nods appreciatively at the mention of his reputation as an honest player. “It makes me happy to hear that. That’s the way I am,” he says. “I grew up like that. I play always honestly. I won’t change. I don’t dive. I can’t dive. I just can’t do that. I grew up playing on that hard surface, and I couldn’t dive on it as I’d hurt my legs. There were stones on it.

“That’s why we never tried to dive, so we never learnt diving. We didn’t have the pitch for diving. Even on the grass pitch here, I try not to fall down.”

He stays on his feet and remains sanguine. “In the youth teams in Germany I was always tackled hard but I never, ever got angry,” he says. “Playing in that No 10 position, I was used to those tackles. I knew the tackles would happen. It is better for me to beat the tackler with my creative abilities, not showing aggression or being angry against them. That’s a waste of time. I focus on the game.”

Özil’s selfless traits are reflected in 13 Premier League assists, bringing Thierry Henry’s record of 20 into range. “I’m not thinking that I have to go past Henry’s record,” he says. “I’ve heard about the record but my aim is Arsenal’s success. It’s lovely to break records, and if it happens it will be nice, but it’s not the most important thing. The team is.”

Such an approach is why Özil squared the ball to Aaron Ramsey at Villa Park rather than shooting. “It was on my right foot. So it’s 50-50 if I score,” he says. “I saw he was in a better position than me, so he could score 100 per cent. It is more important to give the ball to the player in the better position than to shoot myself and risk missing.

“It would make the game easier for us if I played the ball to him, we go 2-0 in front and we win the game. Both assists and goals give me pleasure — because both end up with a goal for the team. I’m a creative player and it makes me equally proud and happy to assist as well as score. Of course it makes me happy if the fans take pleasure from watching me but I play for the team, not for myself.”

To get into the position to pass to Ramsey, Özil flew upfield. He is known as one of the quickest at Arsenal over distance. “I run a lot and if I see a path where I can really counterattack, I go quickly and read the game,” he says. “This season we mix [play] better than last season, we play more directly in front. We take more risk, go faster and go more direct. Keeping the ball is good but if it is better for us to attack space we can play more direct.”

He left the field early at Villa Park, walking down the tunnel as Villa fans gesticulated at him. “They made this [obscene] sign at me,” he says. “They were losing, 2-0 down, in a difficult position with their team, so I just smiled at them and blew them a kiss. Some of them just got more aggressive. Some of them started laughing.”

Özil’s demeanour reflected Arsenal’s mood. “We are a more confident team this season,” he says. “I can feel as a player on the pitch the team is more confident when we play. We dominate the other team. The team believes in itself more this season. It’s not just started now. It’s been going for the whole year. We played very good football in the second half of last season. The players believe we can be successful this season.

“I believe we will take the three points from City. We want to win because it’s at our home and we want to be successful. We are more hungry this season. Look at the Champions League. You could see us in Athens against Olympiacos [on December 9]: we just needed two goals but we went for the third one. We showed more confidence, more hunger.”

Arsenal will need all those qualities and more in the next round of the Champions League. “Barcelona are the hardest team in the world to play against,” he says. “Barcelona are the best team at the moment in the world. We know that. But as a player I look forward to encounters like this. For me it is important to have these big games, it’s nice to play against the best teams, to compete with them is a big opportunity for us.

“We respect Barcelona but they will respect us too. We beat Bayern Munich at home. We are not afraid of Barcelona. We just need to play our game and we can beat them. There is no fear. In football everything’s possible. It is a tough match but I don’t think our defenders were afraid after the draw. It’s a big opportunity for them to prove themselves against the best attack in the world, players like Suárez, Messi, Neymar. It will be an exciting game, with the possibility of lots of goals, but it’s not like we are afraid.

“Barcelona are a big team like any other big team but it is nothing special for me because I played for Real Madrid [from 2010 to 2013]. It’s not like a Clasico for me as in the past. I play for Arsenal.”
And he is on a mission. “If you look at history, it’s sad that Arsenal have not so far won the Champions League,” he says. “Arsenal have always had super players. Arsenal have always played nice, attacking football. I hope we can win the Champions League title in the future and thank the fans for supporting Arsenal for such a long time. They’ve been waiting for this moment.”

The arrival of a former Champions League winner, Petr Cech, has fostered farther belief. “Petr Cech is a big plus for us,” he says. “We are happy we have Petr Cech because he has a lot of experience. If the other team have a chance, he blocks it. We know he will make the save and that makes us calm and more confident. I feel better and more confident when I have a keeper. He can control the game from the back. He is very experienced but we have other goalkeepers who are very good.”

Talk turns to Cech’s old manager, José Mourinho, newly dismissed by Chelsea. Özil knows Mourinho well from their Real days. “I’m surprised by what happened with José,” he says. “He’s a great manager. I believe that any club he goes to now he will be successful again. I know how special he is as a manager. He is a manager who always supports his team and always protects his team. He’s getting the best out of any player. I wish him all the best for the future, and also that he’s healthy and fine.”

Özil left Real and chose Arsenal primarily for one reason. “Arsène Wenger was definitely the main reason I signed here,” he says. “He’s a great football man. He always qualifies for the Champions League knockouts as a team. We are really happy we have such a great manager. He knows how to prepare a team and the players. He’s very experienced. I came here to develop further under Wenger, to learn more from such a great manager.”

Wenger regularly lauds his No 11, saying recently that “if you love to watch football, you love to watch Özil”. The player was once questioned in his German homeland and initially in England. “Because of my performances they stopped talking,” he says. “I’ve experienced so much already in my career, positive or negative, that when the media write in a negative or a positive way it didn’t bother me. It was important to me to never lose my happiness of playing football and I’ve never lost that. That keeps me going.”

He believes that Germany can add the European Championship trophy to their World Cup. “Definitely,” he replies in English, having spoken for much of the interview in German. “We can do it because we have world-class players. We believe. We can win the Euros.” So why are Germans so good at penalties? “Because we are mentally strong,” he says. “I was 20-21 when I took my first penalty. We didn’t practise them at school. German guys go, ‘If I miss, I miss.’ We are not scared to miss. We go for it. Go and shoot. If it’s a goal, goal. If it’s not, it’s not.”

Could he help his hosts? “I won’t teach the English how to take penalties!” he laughs. “After the Euros, maybe.”

Burnwinter

Yeah, I'm not surprised you're going to chase around his other material proving my point. 😉

"If one feels football is a simple game his pieces might do that for you."

True, for easily led simpletons like me, his pieces have created a veritable revolution of the footballing imaginary.

But yeah, diminishing returns on this conversation. 🙂

Qwiss

y va marquer wrote:
We're in the high temple of group think and confirmation bias 🙂

A few standout squabbles regarding one or two players but there's a large dollop of agreement on the limited number of Arsenal centric topics discussed.

Well some things are more clear cut than others. Is there group think on Ozil having a vood season, that Flamini isn't quite good enough, that we should sign more tha. One player of a summer.

Or is it just that you ar in the minority on a couple of issues?

goon

Nah y va is right, it shows on certain topics where the view on here is markedly different to that among Arsenal fans in general.

est

y va marquer wrote:
Patters back in the day

What happened to him?

Shame he's not around any more. Good poster.

est

otfgoon wrote:
Nah y va is right, it shows on certain topics where the view on here is markedly different to that among Arsenal fans in general.

For example?

y va marquer

Not sure why there's a need for the personal dig.
I see it that we don't discuss a wide range of topics, I reckon there are strong lines of opinion common to most posters, interspersed with disagreements over the quality and value of a few players.
It's not meant as an insult to anyone or as a criticism.
I'm describing the place as I see it.

y va marquer

est wrote:
y va marquer wrote:
Patters back in the day

What happened to him?

Shame he's not around any more. Good poster.

He was indeed.
I used to enjoy reading his post match comments.

goon

est wrote:
otfgoon wrote:
Nah y va is right, it shows on certain topics where the view on here is markedly different to that among Arsenal fans in general.

For example?

Wenger for one, opinion is far more divided on him among the Arsenal fans I know outside the forum than on here.

Our prospects of winning the league being another.

There's other more subtle differences I've noticed too, like views on Arteta.

goon

Rohit wrote:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/football/article4646065.ece

‘Zidane never did tricks for the sake of it, he just wanted to play a clever game. That’s what I’ve tried to do at Arsenal’

All the humility that Mesut Özil shows in putting the team first, focusing on selfless assists rather than the glory of scoring goals himself, was nurtured by strong, principled parents. All the balance and beauty that defines Arsenal’s graceful playmaker was developed on a hard, pebble-strewn surface in Gelsenkirchen. The shaping of Özil, a World Cup-winner and one of the most-acclaimed players of the Barclays Premier League season, started in the old coal-mining region of the Ruhr.

An hour in Özil’s enlightening company at London Colney on Saturday reveals a footballer with principles, who still plays the game and lives his life to the values demanded by his parents, who had little money but plenty of love and advice for their four children.

“My parents gave me the right principles, so I didn’t get carried away,’’ Özil says. “They always told me to be down to earth, that I was not special. They told me always to be nice to people. They said: ‘You maybe have the ability to be a football star but it doesn’t make you better than your brother and sisters. Respect each other. Be together’. That’s how I grew up. It’s a cultural thing.”

He attends a Mosque in London and prays daily. “I’m a religious person,” he says. “I grew up like that with my family. For me it is important that I pray. I pray on the pitch. I’m not doing this to show people I am Muslim, or that I’m a believer, I do it for myself. It’s about my faith. At Arsenal, all the team give me respect. They respect my religion. I respect their religions.

“There are some similarities with Berlin but there’s no place as multicultural in the world as London.”
He goes into town, appreciating the capital’s many cultural and culinary charms. “Footballers are still humans — we have to enjoy life.” he says. “People are asking me for autographs or pictures, but it’s a part of my life I’m used to. I try to live my life as I want to. I go to the cinema, restaurants, with friends, just leading a normal life.”

A normal life. His upbringing forged a strong social conscience manifested in his foundation. Last year, Özil started inviting disabled children to Arsenal games. He invited children with cancer to his private box at the Emirates Stadium. During the World Cup in Brazil, Özil funded German doctors to go into villages in the Amazon and operate on children with cleft palates. They started with 11 operations. After the final at the Maracana, Özil told the doctors: “Let’s do more.” So another 23 children had their lives transformed. Özil’s doctors are now in Africa.

“I want to help people in need but I don’t want people to know I’m doing it,” he says. “Usually I don’t like talking about it. I come from a background where you don’t show off the good things you do. It’s modesty. My aim is helping kids. Kids are the future. I love children. I’m thinking of my own childhood. I know where I’m from. If I wanted something, I couldn’t get it. Life wasn’t easy. Things I didn’t have in the past I try to give to kids. I know how it feels not to have things. We were poor but we had enough food to eat. It was a big family, four kids, and it was not like you could just go and buy something. But we had the essentials, the food.”

Özil and the rest of Arsène Wenger’s squad are using today’s match against Manchester City to raise funds for the Arsenal Foundation. Each player donates a day’s wages and fans are being encouraged to go on the club’s website to give too; £220,000 was generated last season, the money supporting UK-based charities such as Bob Wilson’s Willow Foundation and global organisations such as Save The Children, building pitches in refugee camps in Iraq.

Özil takes an interest in all the causes, and a discussion about pitches takes him back to his childhood. It was on the unpromising pitch near his Gelsenkirchen home that Özil learnt how to beat opponents, how to hone techniques learnt from watching Zinédine Zidane on television, and develop the gifts and mentality that have made him a world champion.

“I used to play eight to nine hours of football a day,” he says. “I used to go to school and finish at 1.30, then quickly go outside to the pitch where I grew up with all my friends until 5.30, training with the local team. After training normally we came back and played more on the pitch.”

He would practise Zidane’s techniques and turns. “Zidane was one of my idols, a player I looked up to and learnt from and I wanted to do the same as him,” he says. “When he did tricks, I wanted to do the same. I always admired Zidane. He was a very down-to-earth person. I watched how he did his passes. He didn’t do tricks for the sake of it. He never wanted to show off. He just played a clever game. He’s the player who decides games. I watched his technique and tried to do that in my game, and a lot of times it worked.

“I never knew you could make money from football when I was younger. People always said, ‘you are super-talented’ when I was 15 or 16 but I never realised it could be a career. I just loved playing. After 16, I realised for the first time after finishing school that I could even make money from my passion. Wow.”

He nods appreciatively at the mention of his reputation as an honest player. “It makes me happy to hear that. That’s the way I am,” he says. “I grew up like that. I play always honestly. I won’t change. I don’t dive. I can’t dive. I just can’t do that. I grew up playing on that hard surface, and I couldn’t dive on it as I’d hurt my legs. There were stones on it.

“That’s why we never tried to dive, so we never learnt diving. We didn’t have the pitch for diving. Even on the grass pitch here, I try not to fall down.”

He stays on his feet and remains sanguine. “In the youth teams in Germany I was always tackled hard but I never, ever got angry,” he says. “Playing in that No 10 position, I was used to those tackles. I knew the tackles would happen. It is better for me to beat the tackler with my creative abilities, not showing aggression or being angry against them. That’s a waste of time. I focus on the game.”

Özil’s selfless traits are reflected in 13 Premier League assists, bringing Thierry Henry’s record of 20 into range. “I’m not thinking that I have to go past Henry’s record,” he says. “I’ve heard about the record but my aim is Arsenal’s success. It’s lovely to break records, and if it happens it will be nice, but it’s not the most important thing. The team is.”

Such an approach is why Özil squared the ball to Aaron Ramsey at Villa Park rather than shooting. “It was on my right foot. So it’s 50-50 if I score,” he says. “I saw he was in a better position than me, so he could score 100 per cent. It is more important to give the ball to the player in the better position than to shoot myself and risk missing.

“It would make the game easier for us if I played the ball to him, we go 2-0 in front and we win the game. Both assists and goals give me pleasure — because both end up with a goal for the team. I’m a creative player and it makes me equally proud and happy to assist as well as score. Of course it makes me happy if the fans take pleasure from watching me but I play for the team, not for myself.”

To get into the position to pass to Ramsey, Özil flew upfield. He is known as one of the quickest at Arsenal over distance. “I run a lot and if I see a path where I can really counterattack, I go quickly and read the game,” he says. “This season we mix [play] better than last season, we play more directly in front. We take more risk, go faster and go more direct. Keeping the ball is good but if it is better for us to attack space we can play more direct.”

He left the field early at Villa Park, walking down the tunnel as Villa fans gesticulated at him. “They made this [obscene] sign at me,” he says. “They were losing, 2-0 down, in a difficult position with their team, so I just smiled at them and blew them a kiss. Some of them just got more aggressive. Some of them started laughing.”

Özil’s demeanour reflected Arsenal’s mood. “We are a more confident team this season,” he says. “I can feel as a player on the pitch the team is more confident when we play. We dominate the other team. The team believes in itself more this season. It’s not just started now. It’s been going for the whole year. We played very good football in the second half of last season. The players believe we can be successful this season.

“I believe we will take the three points from City. We want to win because it’s at our home and we want to be successful. We are more hungry this season. Look at the Champions League. You could see us in Athens against Olympiacos [on December 9]: we just needed two goals but we went for the third one. We showed more confidence, more hunger.”

Arsenal will need all those qualities and more in the next round of the Champions League. “Barcelona are the hardest team in the world to play against,” he says. “Barcelona are the best team at the moment in the world. We know that. But as a player I look forward to encounters like this. For me it is important to have these big games, it’s nice to play against the best teams, to compete with them is a big opportunity for us.

“We respect Barcelona but they will respect us too. We beat Bayern Munich at home. We are not afraid of Barcelona. We just need to play our game and we can beat them. There is no fear. In football everything’s possible. It is a tough match but I don’t think our defenders were afraid after the draw. It’s a big opportunity for them to prove themselves against the best attack in the world, players like Suárez, Messi, Neymar. It will be an exciting game, with the possibility of lots of goals, but it’s not like we are afraid.

“Barcelona are a big team like any other big team but it is nothing special for me because I played for Real Madrid [from 2010 to 2013]. It’s not like a Clasico for me as in the past. I play for Arsenal.”
And he is on a mission. “If you look at history, it’s sad that Arsenal have not so far won the Champions League,” he says. “Arsenal have always had super players. Arsenal have always played nice, attacking football. I hope we can win the Champions League title in the future and thank the fans for supporting Arsenal for such a long time. They’ve been waiting for this moment.”

The arrival of a former Champions League winner, Petr Cech, has fostered farther belief. “Petr Cech is a big plus for us,” he says. “We are happy we have Petr Cech because he has a lot of experience. If the other team have a chance, he blocks it. We know he will make the save and that makes us calm and more confident. I feel better and more confident when I have a keeper. He can control the game from the back. He is very experienced but we have other goalkeepers who are very good.”

Talk turns to Cech’s old manager, José Mourinho, newly dismissed by Chelsea. Özil knows Mourinho well from their Real days. “I’m surprised by what happened with José,” he says. “He’s a great manager. I believe that any club he goes to now he will be successful again. I know how special he is as a manager. He is a manager who always supports his team and always protects his team. He’s getting the best out of any player. I wish him all the best for the future, and also that he’s healthy and fine.”

Özil left Real and chose Arsenal primarily for one reason. “Arsène Wenger was definitely the main reason I signed here,” he says. “He’s a great football man. He always qualifies for the Champions League knockouts as a team. We are really happy we have such a great manager. He knows how to prepare a team and the players. He’s very experienced. I came here to develop further under Wenger, to learn more from such a great manager.”

Wenger regularly lauds his No 11, saying recently that “if you love to watch football, you love to watch Özil”. The player was once questioned in his German homeland and initially in England. “Because of my performances they stopped talking,” he says. “I’ve experienced so much already in my career, positive or negative, that when the media write in a negative or a positive way it didn’t bother me. It was important to me to never lose my happiness of playing football and I’ve never lost that. That keeps me going.”

He believes that Germany can add the European Championship trophy to their World Cup. “Definitely,” he replies in English, having spoken for much of the interview in German. “We can do it because we have world-class players. We believe. We can win the Euros.” So why are Germans so good at penalties? “Because we are mentally strong,” he says. “I was 20-21 when I took my first penalty. We didn’t practise them at school. German guys go, ‘If I miss, I miss.’ We are not scared to miss. We go for it. Go and shoot. If it’s a goal, goal. If it’s not, it’s not.”

Could he help his hosts? “I won’t teach the English how to take penalties!” he laughs. “After the Euros, maybe.”

Good interview. It always strikes me just how much these guys played football when they were younger.

Ray

Arsenal fans, in an Arsenal forum, in "agree on most things arsenal related" shocker. Maybe we need some rival fans to give some perspective.

goon

Let's get back on topic please. Need more Mesut related goodness on here.

y va marquer

Here he is on his mid season break.
Sunshine rejuvenation.

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