Mesut Özil: Time to Move Ön?

[Aevi]

It's interesting how this whole episode has kinda separated 'the men from the boys', or the good blokes from the c*nts rather.

It's not as black-and-white of an issue as both sides make it out to be. Without getting into the issue too much, I don't feel any side is blameless. People have the right to be bothered by the message the Erdogan photo conveyed (a feeling that doesn't make them racist) and I personally feel he shouldn't have done it, but the reactions that a few people had against the photo were racist and that's inexcusable. The WC performance bollocks was meanwhile an irrelevant addition to the debacle.

In the end it's all a shame because the only winner is Erdogan.

 

[razörist]

It's interesting how this whole episode has kinda separated 'the men from the boys', or the good blokes from the c*nts rather.

Well thats a bit too much from whateverspor. Looks like a cry for attention to me.

 

[Fewtch]

 

[Toby]

There is a video from 74 or when ever, only "pure bred" Germans in the team, none is singing. That whole discussion is pure xenophobia, started by some racist cvnts when the german born kids of first gen immigrants came into the fold of the NTs starting around 2000 to 2005 in bigger numbers than before. Absolute joke these people. It's a disgrace corrupt and borderline or even rightout criminal persons like Beckenbauer and Hoeneß have the impudence to take any sort of moral high ground or even open their mouths publicly, when they should be ostracized or in prison.

 

[fc honka]

I have always loved Mesut but he should have handled this differently. Him and Gundo making the picture with Erdogan definitely hurt the German team in Russia. He should have pointed out in his statement some regrettance for that. But nothing came out. In some way I can understand some of his team mates even if it probably is no coincidence that the Bayern players are those with a big mouth.

Hoeness and Beckenbauer (who once was a fantastic player) are both ****s. They should just shut up. Hoeness should be back in jail anyway.

 

[Toby]

He should have pointed out in his statement some regrettance for that.

As much as I agree with basically everything in Özil's stament, I have to agree to this, too. Besides explaining his reasoning for taking the picture, a few words on how he understands where the reasonable part of criticism is coming from and that he does understand that bigger context, would have been very good and made the statement even better and wouldn't have hurt his stance and reasoning in any way.

Him and Gundo making the picture with Erdogan definitely hurt the German team in Russia.

Now that's the part I cannot agree on. How does it hurt the team? How does it affect any other player's performance? These guys are all professionals earning millions - they should be able to get their heads down and focus, especially as none of them were directly involved. Kroos or Müller or any of the others, especially the officials like Löw or Bierhoff, none of them has any justification to say: "Mesut and Ilkay taking a picture with Erdogan made me/us play worse." That's a ****ty excuse.

If anything, after the meetup with President Steinmeier and the endless press conferences about the incident, the DFB should have put forth an official statement saying that the public side was done and the rest would be handled as an intern problem, saying further questions on the topic wouldn't be answered. If the media doesn't react accordingly but keeps on to harass the team about it and - which I still can't fathom with any pro in any field - it becomes a serious source of unrest within the team/for some individuals, shut down any contact with the press to protect the team. DFB absolutely mishandled the whole situation and played a big part in allowing it to become the ****show and witchhunt it had become by diligently answering every of the million stupid questions on it and keep reacting to it.

 

[Tosker]

Media reaction to the Erdogan meeting probably caused a rift, or increased an existing rift, in the dressing room, which would not have helped team spirit. It's arguable though whether the meeting, or reaction to it, was the main cause. Özil's statement suggests his Turkish roots have been an issue for some long before the Erdogan meeting.

 

[Toby]

Media reaction to the Erdogan meeting probably caused a rift, or increased an existing rift, in the dressing room, which would not have helped team spirit. It's arguable though whether the meeting, or reaction to it, was the main cause. Özil's statement suggests his Turkish roots have been an issue for some long before the Erdogan meeting.

Don't know about that. Özil rather implicated DFB officials of racism than team mates. Also, that team has been ethnically diverse for a long time now. Polish, Turkish, Albanian, Ghanaian, Senegalese, Tunisian, Spanish - even Brazilian heritage with Kuranyi and Cacau. Don't believe there was a rift initially, although I can believe some players took it more serious than others - though: Isn't every one saying how football is apolitical so should they care?

I think the internal "rift" was rather down to the players' initial own self perception, arrogance and goals and that being completely changed by their bad performance, which led to dissatisfaction and from there on to blame shifting, bad vibes and finally rifts. The Özil thing is only a rather small part of that, I think.

 

[yybecause]

humans are ****, simple enough. very bottom on my list of all living beings on this planet. their arrogance, stupidity, jealousy, hatred and ego that drives them can’t be matched by any being, luckily. unfortunately I got a short match and got to spend my lifetime around those mf’s

 

[fc honka]

Now that's the part I cannot agree on. How does it hurt the team? How does it affect any other player's performance?

I am no professional manager but have coached for some time at medium level. In team sports the spirit of the team is the Essential for succeeding. If the issue was not properly discussed/ taken care of, it could have and it probably did affect the dressing room spirit. Germanys game was so out of sync in Russia, so for sure this is not the only reason for the historical fail. It could have been one of many reasons though.

I am not blaming only Özil for this issue at all. The team managers Löw and Bierhoff should have done much better. Seeing Löw continue as manager was a big disappointment.

 

[Toby]

Seeing Löw continue as manager was a big disappointment.

Biggest disappointment of all. The guy sat out 3 matches watching his team being outplayed, himself being outcoached without doing/changing anything besides swapping players.

Even during the games the problems were so glaring and he didn't do anything about it. E.g. in the Mexico game...the way the CBs sat too deep/the fullbacks too high, so there always was on side space right in front of the CBs which Lozano, Vela and Chicharito perfectly used to break forward - you could see it all game long and either you pull the whole team deeper or push higher to get rid of that space - Löw watched it going on for 90 minutes without reacting. That's not on the players, that's on the manager. The Mexico coach even said after the game he had those tactics prepared for more than a year and he could use them to the T in this game and Löw completely fell for it.

Löw got caught out as the tactical amateur he is without massive on field help by distinguished leaders with tactical knowledge such as Lahm, Mertesacker and Schweinsteiger. Lends a lot more credibility to the rumours that in 2014 after dodgy performances exactly those players got involved in tactics and helped the team play better.

Not for one second do I believe that any big club was seriously interested in Löw at any point or that he ever considered leaving his tailor made wellness spot DFB. It's a place of clicheed pep talk, **** tons of PR (look at the sheer number of ads they did), a happy go lucky hang around place.

He also completely failed to instill hunger in the team. You could just see that Kroos was completely disinterested and mentally fatigued by the CL campaign/win with Real, for example.

A guy that gets himself outcoached three times in a row in such embarrassing ways has to go. Usually no two ways about it.

Don't like the guy, but Sammer with his cvnt personality and football knowledge as Team Director instead of Bierhoff and maybe Stefan Kuntz, Ralph Hasenhüttl or Miro Klose as coach would have been neat options to shuffle things up.

 

[James Bond]

Disgusting game from him. The head dropping and lack of effort is expected when we're losing but you'd back his first touch and completing simple passes normally, but he was shocking at everything today.

 

[Raicore]

Özil is just easy to play against when playing the big teams..gets worse when u add in xhaka in the mix..best to bench this two when playing the top 6.

 

[blaze_of_glory]

Thought effort was the one thing that couldn't be faulted in his game today. Seemed to be everywhere but nothing was coming off.

 

[Raicore]

Lost the ball 19 times today

 

[Camron]

He's not a chips down player.

 

[celestis]

I don't fault his effort but he's one of the leaders now , needs to watch that body language . Hope he's going to rise above the summers events. Otherwise he can ride on the pine as well .

 

[razörist]

Disgusting game from him. The head dropping and lack of effort is expected when we're losing but you'd back his first touch and completing simple passes normally, but he was shocking at everything today.

? Just your standard copy paste haters post or something? He was bad but it was not because of a lack of effort.. his head dropped? What?

 

[Godwin1]

He's not had a season at Arsenal where his overall form had matched his ability. I imagine it's Emery's priory when it comes to individual players to get him to improve his consistency. Seems like a square peg being forced into a round hole throughout his Arsenal career.

 

[freeglennhelder2]

Very very poor today.

But, seems to attract Trump-like loyalty in his support. Doesn’t matter what he does on the pitch, could play like today for 38 games of the season. People will still back him to the hilt. I just don’t get it to be honest.

Anyway, let’s hope it was a one off today and he goes on to kick a$$ this season.