Nik produced a very fine post about half a year ago on how Arsenal could beat Bayern in our CL encounters with them. Nik is based in Germany and knows German football really well, and that’s why I asked him to write a background post on our new super-quality signing. He did not hesitate to say yes, and below you will find a very fine post about MO11. Enjoy. 🙂
The Perfect Transfer?
Born and raised in Gelsenkirchen, Mesut Özil joined Schalke in summer ‘05 at the age of 16: a move that really kicked off the career of the best number 10 in the world.
Only half a year later he starred in the prestigious indoor tournament ‘Mercedes-Benz Junior Cup’. Schalke won the Cup beating youth sides of Dortmund, Stuttgart, Bremen, Basel and some others along the way. Özil was top scorer and impressed with his footballing intelligence and technical skills. He also was ‘chief actor’ of Aljoscha Pause’s short-film ‘Mesut17’ – only available in German: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utXR5BDU3sQ
In the movie Joachim Löw, Jürgen Klinsmann’s assistant at that time, and Uli Stielike, German U20 coach back then, talk about Germany stepping up their youth-development and the possibility that Mesut Özil could become a part of Germany’s 2010 WC team. Özil himself talks about wanting to play for Germany despite not having acquired the German citizenship yet. Later that season, Özil made his debut for the German U19 and went on to win the U19-Bundesliga.
At the end of the short-movie Özil was asked how he rates his chances of playing in the first team for Schalke. Özil confidently replied ‘by the end of the season, I think I will make it’. It only took seven months before Özil was handed his first Bundesliga match on the opening day of the 2006/07 season, coming on as a substitute after 80 minutes. Özil went on to make 20 appearances for Schalke and 10 for the U19 national team.
Özil started 6 of his 11 games for Schalke in the first half of the 2007/08 season, before Schalke announced they will not give him a new contract. The reason for the decision were long running contract talks with Özil’s father and agent, Mustafa Özil which did not come to any conclusion.
Bremen signed Özil on January, 31st 2008, deadline-day. He made 12 more appearances including 6 starts for Bremen until the end of the season and was able to score his first ever Bundesliga goal.
Objectively, Özil moving to Bremen was the best possible move inside of Germany for him. He was able to learn from the best number 10 in the Bundesliga, Diego. Diego was the heart of Werder Bremen’s great offense and he collected 13 goals and 11 assist in the ‘07/’08, and 12 goals and 6 assist in the 08/09 Bundesliga seasons.
The 08/09 season saw the breakthrough of Mesut Özil.
Collecting 3 goals and 15 assists, scoring the winning goal in the DFB-Cup final and reaching the UEFA-Cup final, saw him become one of the most established young players in Germany. On international level, Özil collected his first senior cap in a friendly against Norway, and he won the U21 Euros, being named the man of the match in the 4-0 final victory over England, where he scored 1 goal and produced assists for 2 of the other 3 goals.
With the departure of Diego, the 09/10 season was perfectly set for Özil to become the key-player for Bremen. He delivered 9 goals and 17 assist and led Bremen to another DFB-Cup final, which they lost to Bayern. Özil made his first competitive game for Germany in the WC qualification against Azerbaijan and has been present ever since. The 2010 World Cup in South Africa, and his move to Real Madrid a month later, saw Özil’s popularity rise on a global scale and his well documented development to being one of the best number 10s in the world (I consider him THE best number 10 in the world).
For me Mesut Özil has two major strengths:
1) His vision. It is absolutely amazing how Özil always picks the right pass at the right time. He sees possibilities, spaces, runs that no other would see and therefore collects all those assists. Every time I see him play I get the feeling that he has a radar in his vision.
2) Technical skills. Özil is one of very view players who could run half an hour with the ball at his feet with another player chasing him, without losing the ball. He has absolutely perfect control of the ball at any time.
His biggest and only real weakness to me is his defensive work. Most of the time he gets robbed of the ball or plays a bad pass he is disappointed with himself, and does not track back immediately. Fortunately he doesn’t lose the ball too often.
The perfect transfer?
Over the course of the transfer window I have read what feels like millions of stories, rumors, articles and gossip. My mood went from great we have 70 million to spend to, are we going to spend at all; and I know most of you felt very much alike.
But when I read that we were close to signing Mesut Özil on deadline-day, I went absolutely crazy.
I believe that we could not have made a better signing to strengthen our attack, for the following reasons:
- All our front players will profit from Özil’s passing. (Theo in particular);
- At times, our possession did not seem to get us anywhere, because we were just playing it from left to right and back again. Özil is the player who will unlock the defence when we play too many square passes;
- Wilshire, Ramsey, Ox, Zelalem, and all other young central midfielders, can and will learn a lot from playing with Özil.
- He is just 24.
- He is a statement of intent from Wenger. (hopefully)
Now, do you agree with me on his strengths and weaknesses, and do you think we could have made a better single transfer this summer?
Written by: Nik.