Quite a statement from him yesterday, and fair play to him. No player should have to put up with racism. Although i accept Erdogan isn't the greatest of people to be photographed with whilst saying "my president'.
"I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose"
The guy is a 5 time German footballer of the year, a world cup winner, has 92 caps and has created more assists for Germany than any player since making his debut 9 years ago.
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It'll be interesting if Ozil's performances with Arsenal improve, seeing that club football is his only focus now
But its a shame he has felt the need to retire from international football over this at 29
Otherwise it looks as though he just wanted to hang on for one final World Cup opportunity and deliberately picked a time after it to quit. Am I missing something here?
Whether you agree with him or not, that was one hell of a way to retire.
In solidarity I would like to declare that I will never play for Germany either.
Seems to be something that’s happening more and more across Europe whereas in England there is no discussion at all about the ethnicity of the England team, it’s not even a talking point, which shows what a progressive and tolerant society we have compared to other places.
And as @ForeverAddickted stated: If there had been success (at least semi-final) for the German team nobody would have cared. But after this disaster you have to find out what has gone wrong.
Putting all blame on Ozil is way to simple. He wasn't the only player to underperform and he didn't play that bad in the game against South Korea.
Similar to Arsenal supports everybody in Germany expects Ozil to do extraodinary things the whole 90 minutes.
The critism "I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose" is imo not to wrong. If you are looking for a scapegoat the point of foreign origins is pointed out by people who are looking for simple answers. And there are many of these people.
If the DFB isn't able to find the 'real' rootcause of the World Cup exit in the group stage it will be tough years the support the German team (Die Mannschaft).
I expect to have more fun in supporting Charlton tbh.
He was their best player at the World cup.
Not really for this thread - but getting eligibility for a national team on residency rules seems so wrong to me.
His grandparents are turkish hence he has turkish roots
I know he has done no wrong and he doesn't have explain his life and background to one and all but sometimes I think it worth avoiding situations like this, it gives the racists opportunities on a plate.
Think its more the pathetic remarks on Comments Boards (not here) when we won the U17 and U20 World Cup saying that it was really Nigeria who won those World Cups rather than it being England
He's such a tart in all other aspects of his character though. On the pitch, he's so weak. I think Arsenal made a huge mistake tying him down with £300k a week. He should go and play for PSG, a club that have no domestic competition and they can carry him
We can talk about if what he did in meeting Erdogan (and what he wrote) is appropriate, but it's a far more prosaic conversation than what was put forward by the growing right wing, racist, xenophobic bloc in Germany which basically said "We want out because you're Turkish" (aka brown aka not like us and it all starts to sound eerily familiar).
As FA points out, this has definitely been an issue with Switzerland in recent memory, as it has with Belgium (though *as I understand it* with Belgium it's a little more complicated as it gets at the larger division in Belgian society between the Flemish and French speakers).
Also, I do think this happens drastically less in England. But it's hard for me to look at the treatment Raheem Sterling has received and not think that at least some of that is driven by racial animus, especially given the sources for some of it. I know the tabloids have a long history of tearing England players down, but when you look at the things Raheem Sterling gets abuse over, as opposed to say what Wayne Rooney got historically, it's a wide chasm.
Sterling gets stick because he regularly falls massively below expectations in an England shirt. Wayne Rooney is England’s all time leading scorer. The reason the two are treated differently has very little to do with race.