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Mesut Ozil born on 15th October in 1988 is a German professional footballer who plays for EPL top flight team, Arsenal and the German national squad. Ozil has been a youth national team member since 2006 and a member of the German national team since 2009. During the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the German International outshone the rest of the players and attained international attention. He was also nominated for the Golden Ball Award, in that tournament. Ozil started his senior career at club Schalke in the Bundesliga in 2006 and then transferred to Werder Bremen in 2008. After an illustrious World Cup, he was picked up by the Spanish football Powerhouse Real Madrid in August 2010. On transfer deadline day of summer 2013, he made headlines everywhere when he moved to Arsenal for a club-record fee of £42.5 million, shocking the world and delighting gooners all across the world. That transfer made him the most expensive German football player of all time.
Ozil has grown famous for his finesse and improvisation as an attacking midfielder. His style and ability to provide beautiful final passes for his team-mates has been compared to that of Real Madrid legend Zinedine Zidane by former manager José Mourinho. But then who doesn’t know this? Who hasn’t seen Ozil break open defenses whenever Arsenal plays? What else do you know of this German Superstar besides those that have been publicized and scrutinized the world over? Let’s take a look at what else this footballer is made of.
Personal Life
Many have noticed that Mesut Ozil does not look particularly German, nor does his name sound like many of the rest of his teammates on Germany's national team. This is because this German International’s ancestors come from Turkey, and he is a third-generation German. His father Mustafa moved to Germany when he was only two years old. Ozil's ancestors are from Northern Turkey, and he can speak Turkish fluently. He is a strong follower of Islam and is a practicing Muslim and even prays from the Quran before every match. Furthermore, he tries to fast during the holy month of Ramadan but his football commitments don’t allow him to follow that too strictly. In wonderful description of his ancestry and his style of play, Ozil once said, “My technique and feeling for the ball is the Turkish side to my game. The discipline, attitude and always-give-your-all is the German part.”
Ozil is not married but has been dating singer Mandy Capristo since 2013. Before her, Ozil was dating Anna Maria Lagerblom but their relationship didn’t work out and so they spilt. Apparently after the break up, Ozil went through a rough patch where he did things a little over the top. He was seen frequenting nightclubs and partying. This lasted for about the whole of second year at Real Madrid and astonishingly, during this time he proved to be very productive in the pitch. After that he met his current girlfriend, German Singer Mandy Capristo, and since then his friends have credited Capristo with being a positive influence in his life. They say that she put his head back on his shoulders and Ozil was back to his old, positive habits. They are very happy together, to the point that they are now looking for a house together in London.
Style of play
Like so many footballers who grew up without too much money, Ozil learnt his football on the streets as a young boy before he joined the pipeline of Gelsenkirchen's FC Schalke 04 in 2005. In fact, he used to play in this place called the "Monkey Cage," a local pitch which was surrounded by fences. Looking back, we can probably see how Ozil got his skill in controlling the ball in tight spaces, turning direction deftly and making quick decisions. Playing in streets and caged pitches must have surely aided that.
Hailed by many as the ‘German Messi’, Ozil has catapulted himself to the highest of footballing platforms and he has done so with his marvelous skill with the ball. He is a clinical genius and controls gameplay even without the ball. Ozil understands the game, sees patterns and movements, combines well with team-mates and thrives between the lines with his tight wall passing, making teams come apart. While in Real Madrid, he was compared to the likes of Legends Luis Figo and Zinedine Zidane . Özil is technically perfect and has total control of the ball. Coupled with his creativeness, Ozil bombards defenses with perfectly placed passes into space for his running strikers. And coming to strikers, it’s has been noticed that Ozil works particularly well, when he has a brilliant striker to support him, as has been his case in Madrid with star strikers like Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo. Now with Arsenal acquiring Alexis Sanchez, it looks like Ozil just got his perfect strike partner as long as Sanchez can understand the intelligent German’s game. Ozil fights his battles wearing a pair of size 8(UK) Adidas Predator LZ and like the name of his boot, hunts down spaces and areas to create goal-scoring opportunities.
