Gunning for Greatness: My Life: With an introduction by Jose Mourinho

by Mesut Özil

  In our opening fixture against Australia in Durban Joachim Löw had enough faith to stick me in the starting line-up. He was putting me on the biggest stage I had ever encountered. Although I’d experienced larger crowds elsewhere – such as in the Olympic stadium in Berlin – I had obviously never had so many people watch me live, because a World Cup game like that is broadcast in over 200 countries. Nor had I ever heard so much background noise in a stadium before. When we came out from the bowels of the Moses Mabhida stadium and stepped onto the pitch we were accompanied by the sound of vuvuzelas. It sounded as if millions of bumblebees were buzzing around.

  As I stood there before kick-off, my arms linked with Bastian Schweinsteiger and Per Mertesacker, listening to first the Australian, then the German national anthem, a wave of happiness washed over me. I got goose pimples and shuddered with excitement. My emotions were far more intense than before my first Bundesliga game – more powerful than after my first Bundesliga goal. The wave of happiness just came as a complete surprise and seized hold of me.

  I wasn’t overwhelmed by the emotion, however; it didn’t paralyse me. Quite the opposite. The moment the ref blew his whistle and I first felt the Jabulani, the official World Cup ball, at my feet, I knew that this, today, was going to be my game. I felt as light as a feather and confident. I didn’t think, I just played. Which is always the best way to deliver a good performance.

  I prefer to play without thinking. I don’t want to ponder how I’m going to get past an opponent, but just dribble past him as my instinct tells me. I don’t want to wonder where the next pass is going, but kick it into the right space. Mulling it over isn’t good. Best of all is when your actions occur automatically and intuitively. Thinking inhibits you on the pitch. And so many of my assists are a combination of prescience and luck – for luck is part of it, as my teammates obviously have to choose the right run to receive my pass.

  For this reason I’m not a fan of extremely long and detailed video analyses. Of course, it’s professional to consider the opposition’s weaknesses. To know how to get past my opponents in the next game. It helps me a little if I know, for example, that an opposition player is less versatile on his left side. But if I focus too much on the other players’ weaknesses I’ll spend too long thinking and that could cost me a critical second in the actual encounter. Alternatively, I’ll pay too little attention to my own strengths and adjust my game too much to that of my opponent. But what happens if the opposition coach tries a trick and lines up another player against me?

  My Spanish teacher, who I was to meet a few months later, told me at the start, ‘I’m going to teach you the language so you speak it automatically. Because the words and phrases will enter your mind without your having to think about it. I want the language to become part of your daily routine. When you get up in the morning, you don’t think how you’re going to drive to training, or what gear you should change into when. You just set off, doing everything instinctively, and then you arrive at the training ground. I’m not going to drum grammar or vocabulary into you. I want you to speak Spanish without thinking.’ Exactly the same is true of football.

  I didn’t spend a second thinking in the game against Australia. I made two sidesteps, saw Thomas Müller start running and struck the ball past three Australians to exactly where he was heading. If I’d played the ball a tenth of a second later, i.e. if I’d wasted a single thought on it, it would probably have been intercepted – somehow one of the three opponents would have got a toe to it. But because the pass was instinctive, everything worked perfectly, and Müller was able to play the ball down the centre, where Lukas Podolski came sprinting and put the ball in the back of the net after eight minutes. Miroslav Klose and Thomas Müller both scored to make it 3–0, before I set up the fourth for Cacau.

  The game against Australia was the best of my career. It was pure magic. Everything was right. Every pass. Every move. Every tackle. Every double tackle. Every touch of the ball. Simply everything. When I was substituted in the middle of the second half, the German fans got to their feet. A standing ovation. They applauded and called out my name. I could have burst with the pride I felt at that moment.

  Obviously I heard what the German manager Joachim Löw said to the TV cameras afterwards. ‘Mesut is an extremely important player for us and he embodies the type of football we want to play. His deadly passes are made with such ease, the ball never stops at his feet, but just keeps moving. Mesut Özil was sublime off the ball too. The moves he made were so important.’

  I also caught Miroslav Klose’s words of praise for me: ‘We’ve been needing a number ten and looking for one. It’s great that Mesut decided to play for Germany. The way he kept supplying his teammates with surprising passes is outstanding.’

  When we spoke the following day, my brother Mutlu told me that ‘Kaiser’ Franz Beckenbauer had said, ‘What Özil does is extraordinary.’

  It was completely crazy, especially because the words came from players, coaches and a legend. But I couldn’t let myself get too carried away. One good game on its own wasn’t any good either for me or the team. We still had a long way ahead of us.

  I felt good in the second match against Serbia too. Within five minutes I’d managed two fantastic passes to Lukas Podolski, though he couldn’t convert them. Instead Milan Jovanović scored – and we lost Miro Klose after he collected his second yellow card.

  All of a sudden our progress was in danger, despite our excellent performance against Australia. To be sure of making it to the last 16 we had to beat Ghana in our last group game.

  Both sides had their chances. In the twenty-fifth minute Cacau crossed to me in plenty of space. An absolute dream pass. I was running alone towards their keeper, Richard Kingson. All Ghana’s defenders were 6 or 7 metres behind me. I tapped the ball with my right foot, ran three paces, and then started to think, Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! Should I shoot? Or sidestep the goalie? I knocked the ball forwards again. This time with my left foot. I was already in the box. Kingson was racing towards me, already out of his goal area. We were almost face to face, separated by perhaps 2 or 3 metres. I saw him open his mouth and roar. High or flat? High or flat? What now? High! No, better flat. Bloody head, stop driving me mad. Stop it! Stop!

  Kingson flung himself at me, straddling his legs forward. I was still thinking! When I decided to push the ball flat beneath the keeper, he’d long since guessed what I was going to do and his right foot was there. I’d squandered my great chance in a most embarrassing way. And in such an important game too.

  ‘Siktir lan,’ I chided myself. How stupid can you get?

  I also failed to make my second chance count, even if it wasn’t quite as clear-cut as the first. After a free kick by Bastian Schweinsteiger the ball suddenly landed at my feet. Surprisingly, I found myself with a shot at goal from 12 metres. But a Ghanaian got in the way and blocked it.

  But then, in the sixtieth minute, I stopped thinking and made it simple. Thomas Müller crossed to me from the right. I stopped the ball, which did a gentle bounce, saw that I had a free shot at goal and struck from 18 metres. The ball rushed past the heads of the Ghanaians and went into the net right beside the left post. The winning goal, which ensured our progress.

  The Italian newspaper, La Gazzetta dello Sport now called me a ‘fixture’ in the German team, even though that had only been my thirteenth international cap. In a similar vein, Tuttosport considered me ‘one of the best players of the World Cup’. In Turkey my goal was celebrated by Fanatik as a ‘ballistic missile’. And Bild’s headline was ‘ÖÖÖÖh, what a goal’.

  In the last 16 games I provided one assist in our 4–1 victory against England. In the quarter-final against Argentina – a team with such superstars as Javier Mascherano, Ángel di María, Gonzalo Higuaín, Carlos Tévez and Lionel Messi – I crossed to Klose for the final goal in our 4–0 victory. As a team we were doing everything right. And were getting the corresponding recognition from around the world. ‘Germany is
scary,’ Diario As wrote, while Marca purred, ‘The new Germany is awesome. This team is different, it looks to caress the ball.’

  Waiting for us in the semi-final were Spain, the reigning European champions. Even they had extraordinary respect for us. ‘I’ve always been a fan of their football. Given the way the tournament’s gone so far they may have deserved the title more than us. At this World Cup we haven’t yet come across a side that’s so strong in attack. We’re going to have to be incredibly well prepared,’ Fernando Torres said before the game, while David Villa described our performances as ‘truly sensational’. Even their manager, Vicente del Bosque, sounded very impressed: ‘Against Germany we’ll have to play out of our skins. At the moment they’re the best team in the world.’

  Unfortunately we weren’t able to show any of this in the semi-final. As in 2008 – although I wasn’t in the team then – we lost against Spain. Back then it had been the European Championship final. Now it was the semi-final. We didn’t go in for the tackles. We just ran behind the ball. Their tiki-taka style was unnerving. There’s nothing worse for a footballer than to chase after a ball only to be shown that you don’t have a chance of winning it. Andrés Iniesta, David Villa, Xabi Alonso and co. wore us down with their play. You try to intervene and win the ball. But it’s intensely frustrating after a long sprint down one side to see it disappear at lightning speed to the other.

  When, in the seventy-third minute, Puyol headed a corner into our goal, we were finished. I clearly remember Jogi Löw screaming his heart out in the last few minutes. ‘Now it’s all or nothing,’ he shouted from the sideline. When there were only ten minutes left he collared our captain Philipp Lahm, his right-hand man, and gave us the message via him: ‘Everyone forward. Even if it means we lose 2–0. It doesn’t matter whether it’s 1–0 or 2–0. Take every risk!’

  We made one last combined effort to avoid defeat. But in vain. We were out. And immediately the nit-picking began, at least for some in Germany. Instead of congratulating the team on its showing up till then. Instead of building it up again, because of course all of us were disappointed.

  Out of the blue, Béla Réthy from the television channel ZDF criticised our accommodation during the World Cup. Compared to the Dutch team, whose base had been in a hotel in the centre of Johannesburg, where the players could mingle in the hotel bar with ordinary guests, our team base had been in a no-man’s land on the edge of Pretoria, he said. He didn’t like the fact that a large area around the hotel had been fenced off. All the footballers saw apart from their teammates were a few journalists and monitor lizards, he claimed. Until our exit in the semi-final our accommodation hadn’t been an issue. At times we’d played scintillating football, delighting fans across the world. But now, after one poor game, it was all suddenly our hotel’s fault? What utter nonsense!

  Most of the Dutch players had an impressive career behind them. Mark van Bommel had won countless medals, in Italy, Germany, Holland and Spain. And he also won the Champions League. But in spite of the fact that, as Béla Réthy wrote, he had sat relaxing at the bar rather than living amongst journalists and monitor lizards, he hadn’t won the World Cup or European Championship. In 2010 in South Africa the Dutch side lost in the final against Spain just as we had.

  It was a fantastic World Cup. And we could be immensely proud of how we’d acquitted ourselves with this young, inexperienced team. The fact that we won the last game against Uruguay to secure third place shows how high morale was in the squad.

  Shortly after the World Cup, when the national squad came together again, Jogi Löw gave his obligatory speech, in which he said, ‘We surprised everyone at the World Cup. We played a good tournament. In South Africa I saw a side that thrilled me. And I’m sure it’s going to have success. I know for sure that this side is going to win a major title.’ He would prove to be right.

  Even after the World Cup, it was still not definite that I would move from Bremen. But the press reports skipped over my successful performances in South Africa to focus on the climax of my transfer saga. I even became a subject for discussion amongst politicians. In a Stern interview Jürgen Trittin of the Greens, a well-known Werder fan, said of me, ‘Özil is completely overrated. Please tell this to the news agencies, as it’ll reduce the likelihood of us selling him.’

  Klaus Allofs also weighed in after the World Cup, flattering me with compliments in public, saying, for example, that Mesut was better than Lionel Messi.

  Of course, he was required to give his views week in, week out, and make prognoses. In mid-July he told the Welt am Sonntag, ‘When we spoke personally he told me he’s happy at Werder and he hasn’t had any concrete offers. I’m not worried about him leaving Bremen.’ He said something similar to Kicker: ‘I don’t rule out us being able to renew Mesut’s contract.’ He also said, ‘Losing players on a free transfer is always regarded as terribly bad luck. But if it’s not possible financially to extend a contract, though you’re determined to hold on to the player from a sporting point of view, then you’ve got to live with the fact that contracts expire.’

  This was the first indirect threat aimed at me, which implied: We don’t have to accept any offers. It may well happen that we keep you here and decline all offers.

  After the demanding tournament in South Africa I relaxed, as mentioned earlier, in a villa in Port d’Andratx, Mallorca. And it was from there that we conducted negotiations about my future. My agent had even installed a fax machine in the villa. From Mallorca we also flew to Madrid and Barcelona to listen personally to what the bosses at the two clubs could offer me. I also spent hours lying on a sunbed, agonising over whether I should risk switching to Real Madrid and putting myself in competition with Kaká, who at the time filled the role of playmaker with Los Blancos. The answer, though, was pretty clear: Yes, I wanted to take the risk.

  The only problem in all this was Klaus Allofs. Behind the scenes he was making every effort to block my move. The nice manager who’d been right behind me for three years, who’d protected me from the rare instances of press hostility and always paid me the kindest compliments, had now become the tough, ruthless boss whose concern was not my welfare but that of the club. And he made no secret of his anger that I was considering a move. ‘I don’t have to let you go,’ he said in one telephone conversation we had. And he also made such comments as, ‘We can make you stew on the bench for a whole year.’

  My agent called Allofs to appease him. He contacted him again and again. But the Bremen boss wouldn’t waver. If he were to let me go, he said, the transfer fee would have to be high enough. We knew that Madrid was ready to pay around 15 million euros for me. Which was three times what Werder had bought me for. An excellent return, especially considering I only had a year of my contract to run. If I remember correctly, however, Allofs wanted 30 million to begin with – a pie-in-the-sky amount.

  I was terrified that the deal would collapse. That Klaus Allofs would ruin my opportunity of a lifetime. And so I called him myself. ‘It’s always been my dream,’ I said to him, ‘to play under José Mourinho one day’. Then I told him the story about the Milan game, mentioning what I’d said to my agent afterwards. ‘There are chances that only come around once in a lifetime,’ I continued. I wasn’t seeking to threaten him, nor sound angry or aggressive – I just wanted to make him aware of the unbelievable opportunity that was open to me and how important this move was. ‘Please don’t ruin my future. Please,’ I said, almost begging him over the phone. ‘The Real Madrid train only passes by once. Let me get on it.’

  I completely understand that Allofs couldn’t be happy if a player from whom they were still hoping for great things wanted to leave the club after three years. Of course I get his disappointment. And I can even sympathise with his touches of stubbornness. But the threat to leave me on the bench was excessive. Who would benefit by penalising me?

  On our last evening at the villa in Mallorca, my friends and I were sitting watching television when some breaking new
s ran across the bottom of the screen. ‘+++ Real Madrid signs Khedira +++,’ it said. ‘+++ 14 million for Stuttgart +++. Khedira signs five-year contract +++.’

  Images started playing inside my head, in which I kept seeing ‘Özil’ instead of ‘Khedira’. And ‘Bremen’ instead of ‘Stuttgart’. I wanted to be part of the breaking news. I didn’t want to wait any longer. And most of all I wanted to finally tell my friends. To get them on board. Break my silence. Put an end to the secrecy. Baris tore me from my thoughts. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘Yes, fine,’ I nodded. I think that now he knew what was up.

  At the beginning of August I had to go back to Bremen. Pre-season training had already started; those players who weren’t internationals had already been on the island of Norderney and to Donaueschingen, where they undertook their first two phases of training. The third phase was due to take place in the Austrian town of Bad Waltersdorf. Marko Arnautović had just been signed.

  When the reporters came racing towards me I uttered some meaningless phrases, which I’d agreed beforehand with my agent and learned by heart, such as, ‘As far as I’m concerned only the facts count. The fact is, I’m under contract with Werder Bremen. The situation for the next 12 months is resolved. But right now I can’t say what’s going to happen after that.’

  When, on 5 August, news came through that Kaká had to undergo a knee operation – arthroscopic surgery on the meniscus – in Antwerp it meant I would definitely be going to Madrid. When we played a practice match a couple of days later against Fulham at Craven Cottage, and Alex Ferguson was spotted amongst the crowd, The Times claimed he’d been there to watch me. On 11 August the German news agencies’ reports said, ‘If we’re to believe the sports papers in Spain, it won’t be long before we see Mesut Özil there. His move to Barcelona is close to perfect: four-year contract, twelve million fee.’ The media were speculating gleefully. And I was sending texts. I’d confided in Sami Khedira early on, because I knew I could totally rely on him. ‘Maybe we’ll be playing together soon,’ I’d written to him at the beginning of August. After the official announcement of his signing, the messages flew back and forth between us. I really pestered him. ‘What’s the coach like?’ I asked. Or: ‘What’s the team like?’ And: ‘If you were in my shoes would you move?’ Once, something strange happened. My mobile beeped and notified me that Khedira had sent a text. ‘Hi Mes,’ he wrote, ‘I’m forwarding you a text from Mourinho.’ Then my smartphone beeped again, and when the promised message came through it read, ‘Hi Sami. Have a look, our starting line up for the future.’ Eleven names followed. Ronaldo, obviously. And Ramos. And Khedira. And then I saw my name in Madrid’s starting formation for the future, even though I wasn’t under contract yet. Mourinho must have been very confident to already be telling other players that he was after me.