Jörg Sarbach/Associated Press Mesut Özil, left, brings a daring to midfield not common among German players. From the ranks of the German national team, Mesut Özil is emerging as a thrilling anomaly.
First, there is his playing style: slick, spontaneous, expressive, and explosive. These are superlatives not often applied to German-born players who come up through the highly disciplined and strictly organized Fussball-Bund system. But Özil’s play has earned him the nickname “der neue Diego” – the new Diego – in reference to the Brazilian playmaker whose role he has inherited at Werder Bremen. And his traits are helping to cement his status as the country’s most tantalizing young prospect.
Then there is his background.
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Özil, 21, was born in Gelsenkirchen, a working class city in western Germany, to a family of Turkish immigrants. He is, as the Guardian noted last year, “the first full-blown German international to recite Koran verses before kick-off.”
According to a 2007 report by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, people of Turkish descent form the largest group of “Germans and foreigners with an immigrant background.” There are 1.7 million people of Turkish descent living in Germany, the ministry’s report stated.
But despite their numbers, Turks, more than other minority groups, have had considerable difficulty integrating into mainstream German society. Over half the respondents in a 2008 poll of Turkish immigrants conducted by Die Zeit, a German weekly, said they felt unwelcome in the country.
This cultural crevasse has had visible ramifications for the Germans squad. On one hand, players with foreign backgrounds like Miroslav Klose and Lucas Podolski, both born in Poland, and Gerald Asamoah, who immigrated to Germany from Ghana, among several others, have been integrated into the German squad with great success.
Yet German-born players of Turkish descent — the Altintop brothers, Hamit and Halil (who, like Özil, were born in Gelsenkirchen), and more recently Hakan Balta — have opted to represent Turkey.
For this reason, Özil’s decision two years ago to commit his professional future to Germany created a minor stir across two nations. As Turkish fans bemoaned their loss, the nation’s soccer officials scrambled to change the young player’s mind. In Germany, some right-wing politicians declared he was not a true German; their political opponents, meanwhile, paraded Özil as a role model for improving race relations.
Amid the cacophony of voices, Özil tried to defuse the political implications of his choice.
“It’s not a decision against my Turkish roots,” Özil said at the time. “I grew up here, have always felt comfortable and always got my opportunities in Germany’s youth national teams.”
But discussions of Özil’s background are increasingly hard to hear, as an irrepressible deluge of praise for his play this season has simply drowned them out.
In the final of the 2009 U-21 European Championship in Sweden, Özil scored a goal, set up two more, and earned man-of-the-match honors as Germany dismantled England, 4-0. After the match, Trevor Brooking, director of football development for the English Football Association, openly rued the fact that England was not itself producing “creative” players like Özil.
This season in Germany, Özil has scored eight goals and assisted on 16 more in 25 appearances for Werder Bremen. Earlier this month, Kicker magazine named him the Bundesliga’s best player of the first half of the season. He earned the award after winning 38 percent of the vote in a poll of 228 of his peers.
Özil has now made seven appearances for the senior German national team, an impressive number for a young player. And though the World Cup is still months away, he appears assured a featured role in the squad.
“Mesut has shown great potential,” said Michael Ballack, Germany’s captain, according to FIFA.com. “We’re all hoping that Germany have another classic number 10 on their hands.”
Naldo, one of Özil’s club teammates, added in the same article: “Mesut can decide a match on his own. He’s quick-thinking and the ball just seems to stick to his feet, like Messi.”
In Özil’s own words, his qualities are an amalgamation of the two distinct cultures that shaped him.
“My technique and feeling for the ball is the Turkish side to my game,” said Özil, according to the Guardian. “The discipline, attitude and always-give-your-all is the German part.”
This combination of talents has made him a target of some of the biggest clubs in Europe — Juventus of Italy appears to be his latest rumored suitor.
And to the chagrin of those who will eventually bid for him, his value should only increase once he takes the world stage this summer in South Africa.