The Arsenal social media guys are out right trolling the fan base. Starting yesterday morning they spent the day tweeting about Ozil to "Brighten up the fans' day since it was rainy in London". They tweeted out literally every goal he ever scored. They then posted a photo of his goal on Instagram with the caption #WegotOzil. Then first thing this morning they started again by tweeting interviews with the Boss and Cech about how integral Ozil is to the entire setup, as well as a picture of Ozil with a bullseye target from his goal on Saturday. After that they tweeted a photo of Jack with the caption #SuperJack We all know how our social media team is, and it looks like they are preparing to announce something. Twitter is buzzing with the rumor that Ozil has re-signed until 2021. Potentiallly Jack as well.
Ozil finally opened up about his last couple of months, and wow...... He certainly went out with a bang and stood up for himself. Regardless of how everyone feels about the situation, it's good to finally see him showing some ********ing fight when it comes to people criticizing him. Now that he is done with the DFB for the immediate future, here's to hoping he comes out with a point to prove this season. He's only 29, and with his style of play could still give Arsenal many amazing days ahead. III / III pic.twitter.com/c8aTzYOhWU— Mesut Özil (@M10) July 22, 2018 FYI that's only part three of his statement. Very much worth a read for the whole thing.
All three parts are included in this article. This is about more than just football. https://news.arseblog.com/2018/07/mesut-ozil-quits-german-national-side-cites-racism-from-dfb/
No comment on the politics, but I think Özil deserves praise for being straightforward here. Bold, courageous and steadfast are other descriptors that come to mind.
I don't think we should ignore the politics. He has jumped into the middle of the immigration debate that has given rise to Donald Trump and a slew of right wing politicians in Europe. Speaking about the country I know best, his comments reflect the experiences of many American Muslims and Americans with Mexican or Central American heritage, both documented and undocumented. That's what makes his statement so bold.
I am extremely sympathetic to Mesut's plight and his experiences as an immigrant in Germany. He's given his all for that team and won them a World Cup as their creative fulcrum. He, in every sense, should be a German sporting legend. Which is also why he shouldn't have taken those photos with Erdogan. I'm not victim blaming--just saying that on principle, don't take photos with pieces of shit. I understand how ridiculous and racist the blowback has been, which is really unfortunate because it undermines the point that as an athlete you do need to understand the context of your actions, especially politically. At the very best, Ozil was manipulated in a proxy PR war, and at worst, actually supports Erdogan. Either way--not a good look and he can do better.
I generally agree with your comments about the Erdogan meeting, though it sounds as though Ozil first met him in 2010, well before Erdogan's recent totalitarian moves. So he has an ongoing casual relationship with him. This doesn't excuse the recent meeting, but putting it in context, Merkle has been trying to strengthen ties with Erdogan and Trump has, of course, praised him.
Interestingly someone went back thru all Ozils public statements and he has complained before about the German Turk thing compared to poldi He has also made numerous statements reaffirming germanness and been annoyed at having to keep doing it
Honigstein made the point that Turk stars who don't play ball may face retaliation against their families. This happened to sukur
My thoughts all the scandal (largely already posted elsewhere) I think the initial photo scandal caught Ozil by surprise. As he says, he already met with Erdogan several times before. No one cared. There should have been a blah blah statement at the time that somehow negotiated the thin path between the value signalling liberals and the racist right. Not doing that was a huge mistake by the DFB as discovered in the Saudi game. Just to be clear - because I will post some stuff that no doubt can be misinterpreted, I don't support his conduct with the photo. A footballer cannot be apolitical as Ozil claims. Especially not one with massive endorsements like Mercedes etc. After the disaster in Russia, most of the quality journalism has found fault with Low and the poor team culture, squad selection and tactics. Surprisingly little was made of the Erdogan scandal. However because Grindel had already absurdly re-upped Low until 2022 before the tournament - for no sensible reason - suddenly it suited Bierhof and Grindel to have a scapegoat. So Bierhof comes home and stirs it up all over again - triggering some shockingly racist crap. To be fair, some quality papers like SZ have defended Ozil and pointed out the craziness of Bierhof and Grindel scapegoating one guy. I worried from the start that the DFB and irresponsible parts of the media were going to confirm a lot of Turkish suspicions. Here I am not writing what I believe, but rather how I suspect they see things. Erdogan is of course popular with many Turks. So from one point of view, Ozil is criticised for meeting with an elected President, while the fully racist AfD sit in the German Parliament and question his germaness. According to SZ some in Ozil's circle always said to him he was not accepted and was a 2nd class German and sadly this all provided the ammunition to confirm that view. On top of that the value signalling liberal media are fine with Matthäus and the other bigwigs to meet with Putin and nothing is said about that. So i can certainly see the point of view that only one brown guy is being singled out for this stuff. His point about being called Turkish+German he already complained about in 2017. No one calls Poldi the German+pole or Sami K the Tunisian Unfortunately this is a thing here, and it was interesting looking back over the last 8 years local press coverage how many times he has had to reaffirm his germaness. So yeah - this will sadly do major damage and is a very bad end for a german legend. The DFB disgust me.
This is a very good article in SZ For those who don't speak German, the short version is that Ozil's explanation is too naive to take seriously and why only now? But at some point the obvious racism became the story here, and instead of defending the player, DFB fanned the flames And now they have some real damage with Ozil calling Grindel a racist. Der Rücktritt von Mesut Özil aus der deutschen Nationalmannschaft ist die wahre Niederlage dieses Sommers. Er wird Konsequenzen für Fußball und Gesellschaft haben und daran haben beide Seiten ihren Anteil, kommentiert @MSneijder https://t.co/4XJLO5L1F3— SZ Sport (@SZ_Sport) July 23, 2018
I hate to be pedantic, but calling this a race issue is a stretch and a disservice to actual racial minorities. Ozil is a white guy in a country of white people. This is clearly a religious/ethnic discrimination issue as well as political one. Edrogan has tried to meddle in German politics by trying to influence the vote German Turks. I dont think it’s wrong for Germans to be upset when a star player is seen cozying up to this guy and giving him even more credibility among German Turks. By doing this, Ozil has inserted himself into the political machine and made political enemies. Politics are nasty and people in the game will use anything to further their agendas. I’m sure he has been singled out for his turkish heritage or his Muslim religion and for that I feel sorry for him. I think it’s great that he has spoken out and raised awareness of this as well.
“For me Mesut Özil has been a poor excuse of a footballer for years...”“...Should ask himself when was the last time he won a tackle.”“...His 35 million follower boys that don’t really exist in the real world”Bayern President Uli Hoeneß’s response to Mesut Özil’s statement.— Archie Rhind-Tutt (@archiert1) July 23, 2018 Hoeness making an ass of himself.
eh? he is pretty surely not white! I do agree that the Muslim thing is lurking. Often when people are described as Turkish it often refers partly to muslim customs[/QUOTE] I think people were right to be upset before the worldcup I think what happened after the worldcup was the bad stuff
This is what I have been afraid of for weeks People will now use this to confirm their prejudices - and that includes the Turkish community Ozil has a massive following in the muslim world and 2 guesses which side they will be on Would it really be that hard for German personalities to say that the race hate was wrong and no german player should suffer that?
It's a ridiculous response (and Hoeness, the ex-con, is one to speak...) Ozil: this is racist. Hoeness: yeah, but you haven't put in a tackle. I can't imagine Bayern Munich is thrilled with the comments.
This starts to delve too much into the micro of german culture but the "bayern family" are one of the key groups behind all the dogging of Ozil down the years They never liked him, just like they don't like Boateng. They don't even like Kroos who is an ossie. And especially no bling bling who played for Real. it was these divisions which were solved in 2014 but were also really bad in 2012 with parts of the team split from the "working class" BvB set but seriously you could write an essay about all those rivalries