German midfielder Mesut Ozil at the end of the 2018 World Cup in Russia on June 27. / AFP.
Former Germany international Mesut Ozil, now a player for Turkish club Basaksehir, announced his retirement from football this Wednesday at the age of 34.
“After much consideration, I am announcing my immediate retirement from professional football,” the 2014 Brazil World Champion said on Twitter.
“After several injuries over the last few months and weeks, it has become increasingly clear that it is time to leave this wonderful world of football,” Ozil added.
The former Werder Bremen, Real Madrid and Arsenal player has not had an easy life in recent years.
In July, he spent a delicate stage at Fenerbahçe, one of Turkey’s great players, before dedicating a season to Basaksehir.
He arrived in Istanbul in early 2021 and the number 10 jersey was left out of Fenerbahçe’s first team in March 2022 after clashing with the team’s head.
Ozil had already ended his previous tenure at Arsenal in big trouble.
The player, who started his professional career with Schalke 04 in the Bundesliga, poses for a photo with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May 2018, just before the World Cup in Russia. Germany’s Ilkay Gundogan, also from Turkey, was also shown in the photo.
Ozil then accused himself of being the victim of an attack he deemed “racist” and announced his withdrawal from the German team after the 2018 World Cup, when Germany were eliminated in the group stage. .
For a long time, Özil, born in Gelsenkirchen and hailing from a Turkish family, was seen as an example of integration through sport, but what happened in 2018 was that he wore the German shirt 92 times, making him It shows the front and back of the signing player. 23 goals.
He asserted that the president of the German Football Federation thought he was German when the team won, but felt he was “an immigrant when he lost”.
Mesut Özil’s case has sparked a big debate about racism in Germany, where the largest Turkish community lives outside the country.
Several Turkish ministers have praised Ozil’s decision to leave the team, with one even saying he “scored a goal against the virus of fascism”.
Ozil married Amin Gülce, who was Mr Turkey in 2019 in Istanbul. President Erdogan attended their wedding.
two hearts
Before his downfall in Germany, his image was very different.
The story started well. “He’s Germany’s new number 10,” Stern magazine in June 2010 praised a young hopeful named Ozil.
Born to Turkish parents, he and his German-Tunisian teammate Sami Khedira shined at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Germany finished in his 3rd place and quickly became the standard bearer of the multicultural team.
The photo sums it up perfectly: a bare-chested, smiling Özil shakes hands with Angela Merkel, then head of the German government.
After the 2010 World Cup, Ozil joined Real Madrid, where he remained until moving to Arsenal in 2013. In 2014, he won the Brazil trophy at the Maracana, the pinnacle of his career, with great success in his Cup of the Worlds.
It was the image of Adidas and everything was going well … Until that 2018, the dispute with Erdogan and the German disaster in Russia – 2018, despite the defense world title, fell in the first exchange rice field.
“I grew up in Germany, but my family history is firmly planted in Turkey. I have two hearts, one German and one Turkish,” he said. Ozil said of a turbulent 2018.
Another political engagement that got him into trouble came when he was outraged by China’s treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority. Deprogrammed Arsenal match against City.
Source: Diario.Elmundo
