How can you say Real underperformed? They finished no more than 3 points behind the league winner for 4 years in a row and won 3 CLs over that time. Their 4th CL in 5 years coincided with a poor league performance. If Real wins one more league game in each of those 4 years then it's 5 leagues in a row and 3 of 4 CLs. How is that underperforming?
Real underperformed because they didn’t win the league. They had a better squad than Barcelona during this period too.
They won the Champions League the season before Kroos got there, and there was an element of luck in two of CLs they won: they won the final in 2016 on penalties, and in 2018 they needed an extremely questionable last minute penalty to beat Juve and then they Sergio Ramosed the final against Liverpool. I think it's unfair to begrudge teams luck, as there's an element of luck in each title, but you can't really that Kroos is better than Ozil on the basis of Real Madrid's results because the other data we have (league performance) suggests that Real Madrid got significantly worse with Kroos: To wit, here's their data with Ozil: 2010-2011: 92 points, 102 goals 2011-2012: 100 points, 121 goals (winning the league - this was Mourinho's magnum opus) 2012-2013: 85 points, 103 goals Average with Ozil: 92.3 points/season, 108.7 goals/season Now, with Kroos: 2014-2015: 92 points, 118 goals 2015-2016: 90 points, 110 goals 2016-2017: 93 points, 106 goals (won the league) 2017-2018: 76 points, 94 goals (17 points back) 2018-2019: 68 points, 63 goals (not a typo - Emery's Arsenal had better results than Real Madrid did last season) Average with Kroos: 84.4 points/season, 98.2 goals/season Can argue a lot of things about this data, but it certainly doesn't support the conclusion that Kroos is better than Ozil.
Hmm... I seem to remember others on this board citing his NT performance or stats as germane to his overall quality or value.
Also important: 219 operations are already done, but there’s still many more to come going forward! As my wife Amine and I announced before our wedding in June 2019, we're covering the costs of another 1,000 life-changing surgeries for children in need around the world. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/HSY8rdiogp— Mesut Özil (@M10) December 24, 2019
Ozil has always been more than just another skillful or great player. This man is a brand, he is global he represents things on the field and off the field that is very polarizing. First the style of play and his accomplishments either get undervalued or is overly praised for the sentimental value. Ozil style of play is gone in the modern game. I as a huge fan of Ozil and his brand of football miss that creativity and skill and flair. His critics see a lazy player who doesn't track back is useless or irrelevant without the ball and is a liability. His proponents see the opposite. Ozil gets the most love or hate if you want to call it that based on what he represents off the field. He is a symbol of integration, assimilation, diversity, immigration (even though he is German by birth) secular Islam in the West, Millienal/generational progress and criticism. He is truly a cosmopolitan symbol and in this world of "nationalism" that's rearing its ugly head a easy opponent to bang on about. It's Ozil who brings the world attention to the Uighur mass detention in China not world leaders or even the mainstream media. For that, his independence his style of play and what he represents I will always be a fan of his.
Four players provided 100+ assists in Europe's top five leagues in the 2010s:🇦🇷 Lionel Messi🇦🇷 Ángel Di María🇩🇪 Mesut Özil🇩🇪 Thomas MüllerThree of them started the 2014 World Cup final. pic.twitter.com/UroTEnOzFE— Squawka (@Squawka) December 31, 2019
I'm such an idiot, I clicked that, and accidentally went to Twitter and saw some of the replies :: shudder :: It makes EVERYONE on this forum look like a #WengerStay advocate.
Effective obviously, its called the diagonal de la muerte for a reason, but just seeing him up there with actual creators bothers me.
I think you're underestimating him. I had to watch some horribly soundtracked highlight videos and his passing vision, touch, and range compare favorably to anybody that I can think of. He's an outstanding crosser as well.
I watch him pretty regularly, because my dad likes Madrid, and I disagree strongly, especially when it comes to vision and range. His game does not have that, he's an amazing finisher and movement guy. Not a playmaker and does not have any great passing range like your typical creators. He's hardly involved in build up and his teams do better when he stays out of it.
I would agree that he's not a ball retention or ball moving kind of player, but he is good at making passes that bypass 2-3 defenders and create high quality chances. He doesn't pass as often because he'll just dribble and try to beat the whole defense by himself. That doesn't really work anymore which is why he seems to be hindering Juve's attack atm.
It's interesting how football remains a simple game in these terms, but the gritty detail matters so much. Freddy just showed no signs of being able to deliver on similar ideas.
Does anyone have access to this? I found similar results in Germanys 2014 World Cup data Ozil not only had leading sprint data, but also had the highest top speeds compared to the supposed hard workers of the team With the sprints, both the volume and velocities matter - as thanks to kinetic energy equations, the speeds are v squared, so the higher velocities cost exponentially more than simply jogging further So doing a lot of very high speed sprints is very big outlay Anyone doing intervals in the park knows this, and it is partly why ronaldo is seen walking back into position after big runs Spoke to former #Arsenal high performance director Darren Burgess about Ozil’s physicality, Auba’s ability to defy the age curve, and plenty of other stuff from his time working alongside Wenger & Emery.Read here on @TheAthleticUK: https://t.co/LpIWPUEoBT pic.twitter.com/WI3dtXmCle— gunnerblog (@gunnerblog) January 24, 2020
It tracks Burgress' time at Arsenal. Essentially when he came in we were behind the ball, he implemented a high impact training regime, so as to build up the players' ability to withstand high performance. With Wenger, it was mostly about data, the team apparently predicted Welbeck's injury at Watford away where he sprinted an extra 80 meters over his 400 meter game average. The biggest problem under Wenger was how long the trainers had been there and the closeness of their relationships with players preventing real, and hard conversations about training. Often taking the easy way ie; rest and recoup His time with Emery was more about doing after session training, which players he says in general are reluctant to do. But Emery's session were tactical and not physical and the players needed it. But by the end of the season Arsenal had the best sprint data in the league. Talks a bit about the battle with Emery's trainers, and how the structure didn't set him up to succeed in that situation, but it was what Wenger originally wanted. How Sven, and Ivan leaving left him vulnerable. Speaks very highly of Xhaka's attitude Says PEA can keep up his sprinting for some time yet Talks about Ozil have the capacity, leaves the why he doesn't, to the reader to figure out
Thanks! That is why I was interested to see Ozil pulling out some big physical performances under Arteta I was wondering if he was done. But it was never a question of whether he didn't have it.
I spotted an article about Ozil’s charitable giving to celebrate Ramadan. Given his reluctance to agree to a pay cut without further information on Arsenal’s financial situation, I thought it might be interesting to look at Stan Koenke’s charitable giving. This is what I found from Forbes: “Take Stan Kroenke, a real estate and sports mogul who owns the L.A. Rams. He is the 58th richest person in the country but Forbes could only find traces of a single donation. In 2017, he and his wife Ann Walton Kroenke (a niece of Walmart founder Sam Walton) donated $1 million to the Red Cross in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. The Rams have a foundation, in which they support local youth organizations, but it relies on donations from others. It's possible, however, that Kroenke prefers to give anonymously. His spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.” Sounds to me like the money might be better off in Ozil’s hands.
So it's official - Ozil is frozen out - with no explanation What really annoys me about this club is the lack of transparency. Are they seriously pretending that the player who was one of our top performers before lockdown is no longer good enough to make a 25 man squad? And if he really isn't - why can't they explain that? But of course that is not what this is about.