by Mesut Özil
They had no idea that only a few days earlier I’d been playing football in front of an audience of millions. As far as they were concerned I was just the bloke who was too stupid to stick to the simplest of the safari rules we were given at the start. Our guide had expressly forbidden us to pack any food in our rucksacks or go for a wander. For some reason I didn’t take the warning so seriously when on the first day I took a look around the area surrounding our lodge. I thought a few bananas would be fine in case I got peckish – a typical sports snack to keep you going in-between meals. But I’d barely left the building when I was targeted by a troop of baboons. At least 20 animals, some of them 80 centimetres tall, followed me with the intention of snatching my rucksack. One even leapt onto it and tried to wrench it open. I was just about able to shake him off and escape back to my room. Because the monkeys were waiting on the roof of the lodge for me to come back out I had to call a ranger and confess my mistake to him.
Soon afterwards I had my second encounter with a wild animal. Suddenly there was this impala standing right in front of me, staring at me with its deep black eyes. A beautiful beast. So graceful and finely sculpted. With fur that looked so soft I wanted to touch and stroke it. But it also had these corkscrew-like horns, which must have been around 90 centimetres long and looked rather menacing. One strike and I would have been badly injured. So I stood still and didn’t move. Because the antelope didn’t make any move to leave either, the two of us stood face to face for what seemed like an eternity. Then the animal got bored, vanishing into the bush with a huge leap.
On the third day I saw lions, from just 2 metres away. They were lying around on the savanna. Under a tree. Completely peaceful. No fences or ditches. Two-hundred-kilo colossuses. It’s awful to think that these majestic animals, whose hunting grounds in the wild extend to several hundred kilometres, are crammed into tiny enclosures in zoos.
Although the lions were doing little more than occasionally moving their heads from one side to another, closing and opening their eyes or sometimes giving a hearty yawn, I couldn’t stop staring at them. I could have stayed for days watching these beasts.
I love lions because I think they’re very like me. We’re proud, afraid of nothing and would defend our families against any danger. Because of these similarities I got myself a lion tattoo – although it took a number of attempts before I actually dared do it. I went to the parlour several times with my cousin, who I’d also persuaded to get a tattoo. We even enquired about designs, but for a long time I lacked the courage. It wasn’t until I was badly injured in October 2014, and out for three months with a torn ligament, that I finally had the tattoo inked.
I was in Donaustauf in Bavaria, undergoing rehab with Klaus Eder. When I wasn’t having treatment I went stir-crazy. So I found another a tattoo parlour. On 1 April Serdar sat in the chair first and had a tattoo. When I saw his face contorted with pain I got scared. ‘I think I’d better leave it,’ I said to him when he’d finished. And called out, ‘April fool!’
A joke. This time I didn’t back out again; I had a large tattoo inked in one sitting. The torture lasted eight hours. Tears were in my eyes at the first jab. When the fine needle made its way along the open wound, prick by prick, it was so painful that I just wanted to run away from the tattooist. After four hours my skin was numb and I no longer felt anything.
I’m proud of the lion and my motto, ‘Only God can judge me’, inspired by an idea that came to me on the African steppe. My journey to the African continent was one of the few occasions when I’ve broken out from the golden cage. One I’ve lived off for a long time and which opened my eyes to this world.
In 2012 in Africa I discovered a new world. In 2013 in London I also got to know a new world, at least from a footballing perspective. Arsène Wenger manages Arsenal differently from the way Mourinho ran Madrid. His rules are stricter. For example, he always insists that we take off our boots before entering the dressing room. Wenger brought this ritual back from Japan after having coached Nagoya Grampus over there. That Arsenal dressing-room floor is so clean you could eat your dinner off it.
Being at Arsenal is a bit like being at school. Wenger doesn’t allow mobile phones in the massage room, for instance. They’re strictly banned. He also likes us to appear in similar dress, as if we were wearing a school uniform. Before the game he decides whether we’re going to play in short- or long-sleeved jerseys. He won’t have one player wearing short sleeves and another long. Sometimes, when it’s cold, I’d like to wear a long-sleeved T-shirt under the jersey. But it’s not allowed. And absolutely no long-johns of the sort that Arjen Robben in Munich often wears in winter.
For all his positive personal attributes, Wenger is a strict man in other ways too. Once my two pugs, Balboa and Capon, ran away. Somehow they managed to squeeze through a weak point in the fence and escape. Obviously I was very worried about them. But my search was fruitless – they’d gone. And in a huge metropolis like London, in an area with busy streets. My friends ran around the entire neighbourhood, calling out the dogs’ names. They even asked whether they could go into the gardens of the next-door houses. But my pugs were nowhere to be seen. Wenger had scheduled training for that morning. I couldn’t just ring him and ask whether I might on this occasion stay at home to look for the dogs. It would have sounded like a poor excuse. As if I were still woozy after having been up drinking all night and couldn’t play. So despite my concern for the dogs I hurried to training.
We have to be there half an hour before the session starts. Luckily my teammates covered for me and didn’t tell him that I’d only got to the ground five minutes before. ‘Coach, my pugs have disappeared. Can I go and look for them?’ I asked nervously, after he’d seen with his own eyes that I wasn’t offering some poor excuse but was actually fit and alert. But Wenger didn’t understand the fuss. ‘Your pugs will come back,’ he said coolly and calmly, sending me out onto the pitch. I couldn’t comprehend how he could be so hard. We were, after all, talking about dogs – practically family members – who’d disappeared. I couldn’t bear the thought that they might be lying in a ditch somewhere, having been run over, and suffering internal injuries that would lead to a horrible death.
But it was hopeless. Wenger wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t resume my search till after training. In the meantime my friends had plastered the whole neighbourhood with posters. And that evening a call came from a pet shop where the two runaways had luckily been handed in.
From a sporting point of view the first few months were great. In the first Premier League match Arsenal had lost against Aston Villa. The team then won the next two games against Fulham and Spurs. And after that, starting with the aforementioned game against Sunderland, I was part of the squad. After 614 seconds in an Arsenal shirt – I was given number 11 – I assisted Olivier Giroud’s goal. Ninety per cent of my passes were successful. Wenger was happy, publicly praising my debut as ‘outstanding’. After our victory against Stoke City we climbed to the top of the table and didn’t lose this position until a 1–1 draw against Everton and a 6–3 defeat to Manchester City in our 17th game. But we soon reclaimed the top spot and remained there for the following four games.
So far things had gone pretty well. I’d assisted nine goals in the league and scored four myself. But I gradually felt that my body was starting to flag. That ought not to have come as much of a surprise, as I’d missed pre-season training with Arsenal due to my last-minute transfer. What’s more, this was the first time that I hadn’t had a winter break. Up till then there’d always been a little time around the end of the calendar year to give my body a rest. But in England I had to play on 23 and 26 December too.
At the beginning of February we went to Liverpool. We were leading the table again with 55 points, followed closely by Manchester City and Chelsea. After that came the Reds with 47 points. After 53 seconds the Liverpool player Martin Škrtel scored. In the tenth minute he made it 2–0. And after 20 minutes we were already trailing 4–0. We
were in total confusion with no idea how this was happening. Liverpool were doing what they liked with us. We couldn’t find anything to stop them. And I’ll admit that I looked terrible too.
After the game, which ended 5–1, the media lashed into me. Especially because of the huge transfer fee that Arsenal had paid, they evidently found it unacceptable for me to have the occasional off day. They expected me to shine each time, and when I didn’t, the Independent, for example, wrote that my performance was ‘loose and lazy in possession’. It also said, ‘He’s one of the best in the world when the score is 2–0. But you wouldn’t want him in the team when it’s the other way around.’ In his response to the criticism Wenger backed me up: ‘Mesut’s been a professional footballer long enough to know that he’ll be questioned if his performance isn’t good enough.’ I shouldn’t put myself under pressure because of the transfer fee, he advised me. ‘I just want him to enjoy the game and play well. He’s happy on the ball, which is the most important thing – because he’s got quality.’ He also insisted that I was ‘an exceptional player’.
Per Mertesacker also tried to nip the criticism in the bud. Defending me, he said, ‘Here the ball goes up and down at lightning speed. Everyone here wants to hurt Mesut and show him that it’s a different league to Spain, where you can play beautiful football. That’s why I knew in advance that he’d flatline at some point.’
I really value such support. But it didn’t help much. For I was still being hit by a torrent of criticism. Once one person had taken a pop at me, others decided to have a go. Like a chain reaction.
Under the heading ‘Özil’s not going to win us the World Cup’, an article by Jochen Coenen in Sport Bild said:
Can you recall a really big game that Mesut Özil has transformed? That he’s put his stamp on? No? That’s hardly a surprise because there hasn’t been one yet. He’s messed up the last two important games with Arsenal [. . .] In the European Championship semi-final against Italy in 2012 he scored the goal in stoppage time to make it 2–1. And that’s it. In the 1–0 World Cup semi-final defeat against Spain two years earlier he was a total failure. When he was playing for Real Madrid he was regularly substituted in the Clásicos against Barcelona. The list could go on and on. Of course he has lots of ball contact. But that’s all airy-fairy stuff if, at the end of the day, nothing concrete comes from it. The bitter truth is that Özil’s not going to win us the 2014 World Cup either. Because when push comes to shove he hides away.
Naturally there was more talk about my body language too. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung it was a ‘welcome object of study for all sorts of observers. When the ball isn’t actually glowing at his feet Özil can sometimes look like a little boy standing around looking lost because the big boys aren’t letting him play.’
Our 5–1 defeat was followed by a 0–0 draw in the league against Manchester United. In the FA Cup we took revenge on Liverpool and progressed to the quarter-finals. But then I missed a penalty following a foul in the eighth minute of our Champions League last-16 game, at home against Bayern Munich, which they won thanks to goals from Toni Kroos and Thomas Müller. After a 1–1 draw in the return leg, they progressed to the next round. As far as the Daily Mail was concerned, I was now the German who’d cost 42.5 million pounds but couldn’t take a penalty.
Kicker, too, started a great ‘Özil debate’ at the beginning of March. Ignoring the fact that I’d scored eight goals in our qualifying matches for the World Cup in Brazil, they raised the question of whether I could hack it in big matches. The answers were given by experts who, fortunately, were for the most part united. Andreas Möller, for example, couldn’t understand the criticism I was facing. He was convinced that as a squad we were capable of playing an outstanding World Cup and that I had definitely earned my place as the number 10 in that squad. Günter Netzer and Wolfgang Overath also made positive comments. Netzer praised my skills and said that I’d also help the team, even if I wasn’t one of its leaders. Wolfgang Overath clearly recognised what my problem had been during this slump in form: ‘Mesut Özil can shape the game and determine the tempo, he plays the concealed and final pass, he looks left and plays the ball right, and he’s a threat to the goal. A young man like that is ever reliant on his self-confidence. But there are always phases when you lack this self-confidence. Highly skilled technicians are very sensitive towards this.’ Only Uwe Bein gave a critical answer, which he has every right to do. On the basis of my performances he said that I wasn’t ‘a player for big matches’.
I followed these debates from a distance and held back from commenting publicly myself. I knew that the time would come when I’d give the right answer on the pitch.
But in the middle of March I had a thigh problem that put me out for four weeks, preventing me from helping my team turn their fortunes around in the Premier League.
During that period Arsenal lost 6–0 against Chelsea, in Arsène Wenger’s thousandth game as Arsenal. And against José Mourinho of all people. ‘I feel embarrassed for him,’ he’d once told the press. Mourinho had called him ‘a specialist in failure’. After the match Mourinho said, ‘We came to kill and in ten minutes we destroy. After that, easy.’
We plummeted to fourth place, where we managed to stay for the rest of the season. In the end we’d only lost one more game than the champions Manchester City as well as Liverpool and Chelsea. We were seven points off the lead. Really annoying. For a long time I’d believed we’d be champions in my first year with Arsenal. Of course, I’d dreamed that anyone winning the title would want to win it again.
But we still had a chance to bring the season, which had begun so promisingly, to a successful conclusion.
In the FA Cup quarter-final I had a perfect game against Everton. One of those days full of ‘altered perception’ as I call it. Where you play and know that the ball belongs to you. Where you’re faster and more assured than your opponent. Where your ego is large and everything you do works. Where time doesn’t play tricks on you.
For time is a funny old thing. Sometimes it flies by, as the saying goes. And sometimes – at least this is what people claim – it seems to stand still. All nonsense, of course. Time always passes at the same speed. Everywhere in the world. Always in the same 24-hour rhythm. Just not on the football field! At least the way I perceive time is subject to big fluctuations.
Sometimes time stretches, then it compresses again. Sometimes I’m astonished that the 90 minutes are over. Then there are games where I’m longing for the final whistle to be blown, but the minutes just refuse to tick by. But this is just one of many instances of altered perception you encounter as a footballer.
Proportions change too. On good days, when I step up for a free kick, for example, the goalkeeper behind the wall of opposition players seems tiny, far too small to ever get to my ball. Because my self-confidence is high, it really feels as if it’s someone the size of a Lego figure who is between the posts of the 7.32-metre-wide and 2.44-metre-high goal. Sometimes, however – though luckily this is rarer – things are the other way around. Then it’s the goal that seems tiny and I can barely see a free space to slot the ball into. Now the goalie’s a monster who’ll fish my shot out of the air with his Kraken-like arms no matter where I put it. And without even having to dive.
Sometimes I’m facing four opponents who are rushing wildly towards me. But because I know how they’ll move to win the ball off me I can easily dodge them. It’s as if they’re running at me in slow motion and I’m able to react to their movements in real time – a little bit like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, when he dodges bullets that are fired at him.
Or, to put it more simply: when you’re sure of yourself you believe you can still do a lot with the ball when the opponent is only a metre away. Then you trust yourself to dribble. You are going to determine the next move. If you’re unsure, you feel hard-pressed in the same situation.
I know it might sound funny but I’m convinced that many sportspeople have experienced this
altered perception. I seem to recall that the tennis legend Roger Federer, who I’m a great admirer of, once described something similar. That the tennis ball looks bigger and bounces more slowly when he’s feeling really good. And that in these situations he hits the ball even more accurately, sending it right to the edge of the line and out of reach of his opponent.
The quarter-final against Everton was one such magical day. I felt as if I were holding a magic wand that I could use to direct the game as I pleased. I felt fantastic, I was totally sure of my game. After seven minutes I scored to put us in the lead. Later I assisted Giroud, who made it 4–1. I was declared ‘man of the match’, and with our entry into the semi-finals the media’s attitude changed slightly. All of a sudden our world wasn’t dismal and bad any more; the Daily Telegraph commented, ‘Arsenal revived their season with this FA cup performance. This was more than a win. This was the return of hope.’
We’d beaten Tottenham, Coventry City, Liverpool and Everton. In the semi-final we defeated Wigan Athletic, setting up a final against Hull.
After a few minutes we were already trailing 2–0 in this crucial game. Once again we’d completely gone to sleep in the opening stages. But this time we fought back and after normal time we had recovered to 2–2. In the 109th minute Aaron Ramsey then made it 3–2 to us, which was the final score.
In the nine years before they had signed me Arsenal had gone without a trophy. Now they won the oldest football competition in the world, first held in 1871–72.
After the final whistle I raced over to a television camera and screamed, ‘Ja, Gunners, ja!’ It was just the emotion of the moment; I was expressing my joy at the victory. A few fans no doubt found it amusing to see me bellow into the camera with such passion. And in German, too. But that didn’t bother me. Instead I continued to use this exclamation whenever I had success, even using it as my personal hashtag on Facebook and Twitter. #YaGunnersYa has since achieved cult status. It’s been known to be used more than 50,000 times a month when fans discuss me and Arsenal.
