Watching the replay of the Germany and Ukraine match I got a good chance to follow Özil all game. It really got me to thinking about the player he has started to turn into. 

One thing I had really always liked about Özil in his performances before joining Madrid was his decision making. Many young talents have flair, and have exciting attacking traits but few have a mature sense of decision making. Players like Xabi Alonso, Raul, and Zizou echo this rare trait. 

The essential half German half Turk, Özil is a hard technical worker with excitement and flair. He showed that last season, keeping his head down and working hard, despite not knowing the language. Özil impressed me because of his technical ability to make correct decisions, a very German trait. 

Özil's hard work ethic was not only physical, but mental. He almost always made the best decision when both on and off the ball, reading the game tremendously.

After a consistently good first season at Madrid, among world class Galacticos like Cristiano Ronaldo, Özil earned himself a star status. The team prospered, Özil's game prospered, and he became a superstar, growing along the way, consistently getting better. 

Fast forward to today, after Nike campaigns, club and country starting 11 spots, and lots of media attention, Özil is starting to welcome and enjoy the attention. He's opening up to being a star on a worldwide status. 

This transition I feel is unfortunately having an impact on his game play, as many have noticed and pointed out. 

Perhaps it is his father, who we know pushes for his success with the clubs management. How hard does he push his son? Perhaps he's finding being a celebratory is tough. Being on a team with this much attention via the club and Ronaldo is difficult for any young player. 

Whatever it is I hope he breaks through it, and the best way I believe is to let him play through it on the pitch. The man is a natural footballer and just needs to play. I'm confident we haven't seen anything near the best of him yet. 

I've said this many times before he's just burnt out man, nothing to worry about. But yh something is different with his play. I think he's trying to be as effective as possible without chassing the ball too much/running deep to collect it but that's an entire different mind set and takes time to adapt to.

You should forget the ukraine match, was watching it and turned off with half an hour played. Loew experimented playing a 3-5-2 it didn't work at all and none had a good game.

hes not ripping the world into pieces atm now is he...

I don't get what the fuss is about. We all wanted him to support the midfield more. He won't learn it overnight Let's wait and see, if he succeeds we'll dominate for years
P.S. he played as deep as CM for Germany yesterday He played well for the most part, the 3 man defence was shambolic
Muller's comment after the game: ' We didn't practice 3-4-3 in training but Low wanted to try it out anyway...'

What is it about Ukraine game?
I watched it, experimental formation from Germany which got punished by Ukraine's counter attacks. Not sure what the OP particularly found wrong about Ozil in this game to worth a thread. For those who didn't watch:


The only thing I found a bit weird was how deep he played at times considering in this formation he's supposed to play closer to the CF, making him looked a bit out of position, but maybe he's kind of force to do that given the circumtances on the field, I'm not sure.
But overall he played well, made a lot of nice forward passes & link ups leading to chances, early in the game with his cross he set up Gotze in kind of 1v1 situation, & kind of caused the corner (also taken by him) leading to Germany's second goal. Passing & playmaking wise he's sharper than he was vs Belgium.

And what is it about this the new mesut ozil thing? I don't really get he has started to turn into what exactly according to the OP. He had various level of performances this season and last season, but I think people (and also the media out there) generalised both of his this season & last season.
Style wise I saw nothing has been consistently changed from him this season except he played deeper at times (causing him made less final passes but more the passes before final passes) & with higher workrate.

Ozil is still a boss.
I have no problems with his game.
Yes, he "only" has 4 assists thus far this season.
But with CR and Angel Di Maria doing his job for him, he's still doing alright.
Plus, he has as many assists with shots as CR... joint top of the team.
His passing % is above 80 as well.
Considering that he plays in the final third mostly, that is amazing.

Like I said, why are we worrying?

I'm really not genuinely worried about his on the pitch performances. It's how he deals with being a superstar that I'm saying is of significant consideration. I miss his "keep your head down and work hard" attitude.

That 'only 4 assists' is in indeed one handy misleading fact to use as one justification of how 'sub par' he was so far. The media already used that when tearing him apart recently, people in general also use that to underrate his performances this season. Who cared how unbelievable unlucky he was not to get more assists. Despite the tendency to create less final passes than he was last season due to the slightly changes of his playing style, he created key passes/assists with shot just as many as Di Maria. Di Maria created 5 vs Osasuna->got 3 converted, Ozil created 7 vs Zaragoza->got 1 converted, created 5 & 4 vs Ajax & Lyon respectively->nothing converted in both, it's like the universe didn't want him to have a good stats, lol. And that's not because the quality of his final passes weren't good, most of those were decent chances that deserved to get converted, a lot even were clear chances.

Also, that 4 assist only counted his final passes contribution to goals. He has 0 assists in CL so far, yet half of the goals we created in CL were due to his involvement (5 out of 10). In fact, in all competition besides assisting 4 goals he played important role in creating another +/-15 goals, either by giving assists to assist, initiating the penetration into the box, being key part of counter, giving final passes leading to penalty winning or winning penalty by himself, etc. With total 19 involvements, he's probably the player in the team who's involved the most in the creation of all our goals after Ronaldo.

If anything is worrying about how he deals with something off the pitch, imo that would be how well he dealt with the constant jabs he took from the media recently as I believe that's a whole new experience to him. It's a bit died down now but I expect a lot more & meaner to come as soon as he give another less than impressive performance or starts another game from the bench. Hopefully he can ignore it & just focus on the work.

This thread fails so hard.

Ozil is fine... i don't think it's the greatest of ideas to force this type of change on him when he was dominating in his previous role. Hence, my desire for M'Vila so it becomes unnecessary.

Seriously the opening post makes no sense at all.

sportsczy wrote:Ozil is fine... i don't think it's the greatest of ideas to force this type of change on him when he was dominating in his previous role. Hence, my desire for M'Vila so it becomes unnecessary.

Long term, it's better for him to adapt otherwise Mou wouldn't change his role Teams won't be able to shut him down at all if he learns to play CM->AM. Zidane was practically one, his influence on the game came partically because he played everywhere from CM to AM or even on the wings

This fact doesn't change that this thread is a fail He does well in his new role, not as flashy or more direct assists but more influence on the game in total. Also, if you noticed we keep better possession this year, guess why

As many have said he can't really learn to play deeper overnight

Plus we play pathetico soon right? He brings his A game against them for some reason so just wait

Zidane was at his brilliant best when he had Deschamps, Makelele and/or Vieira taking care of almost all the midfleld defensive duties. It gave him the freedom to just create. His 2006 amazing WC was entirely because Vieira and Makelele took all the pressure off him. So was his play at Juve and France NT with Deschamps in his earlier days.

Sure, Ozil can become a more complete midfielder. But frankly, why??? Get him the cover that all elite creative mids have and let him do what he knows best.

It's important because everyone has a pull a little, share the load of work to make it even and balanced. It's interesting, it's one of the reason Di maria is so valuable to mou, because he makes up for the pressing the other guys arent doing at the moment. Overtime, it wont be needed if everyone is contributing the same.

I want everyone to take part, including Ozil, i am not a big fan of having specialists in my team.

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:It's important because everyone has a pull a little, share the load of work to make it even and balanced. It's interesting, it's one of the reason Di maria is so valuable to mou, because he makes up for the pressing the other guys arent doing at the moment. Overtime, it wont be needed if everyone is contributing the same.

I want everyone to take part, including Ozil, i am not a big fan of having specialists in my team.

Says someone who wants us to buy M'Vila I hate specialists as well

babun1024 wrote:

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:It's important because everyone has a pull a little, share the load of work to make it even and balanced. It's interesting, it's one of the reason Di maria is so valuable to mou, because he makes up for the pressing the other guys arent doing at the moment. Overtime, it wont be needed if everyone is contributing the same.

I want everyone to take part, including Ozil, i am not a big fan of having specialists in my team.

Says someone who wants us to buy M'Vila I hate specialists as well

hey, cant blame me for weighting the + and - . we are linked to him in a more serious way than caughoffside, so it's worth talking about it.

Thing is, complete all around mifielders are something of a rarity, specially if they can also play DM. More often than not, they are fashioned by managers themselves.

discussion can give hindsight about the player, and whether or ot he has potential to improve the offensive contribution. M'vila has terrific vision and passing range going for him, and he is smart.

I seriously did not watch a single match this weekend. What exactly Ozil did or did not do that warrants such a lengthy post?

Doc wrote:I seriously did not watch a single match this weekend. What exactly Ozil did or did not do that warrants such a lengthy post?

He ran the midfield for Germany If the defence wasn't shambolic in a 3-4-3 system Germany would've won 0-3. He caused a goal and was generally sound
I don't get the thread either, he is not out of form anymore He just plays deeper for Germany and RM this season

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:

babun1024 wrote:

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:It's important because everyone has a pull a little, share the load of work to make it even and balanced. It's interesting, it's one of the reason Di maria is so valuable to mou, because he makes up for the pressing the other guys arent doing at the moment. Overtime, it wont be needed if everyone is contributing the same.

I want everyone to take part, including Ozil, i am not a big fan of having specialists in my team.

Says someone who wants us to buy M'Vila I hate specialists as well

hey, cant blame me for weighting the + and - . we are linked to him in a more serious way than caughoffside, so it's worth talking about it.

Thing is, complete all around mifielders are something of a rarity, specially if they can also play DM. More often than not, they are fashioned by managers themselves.

discussion can give hindsight about the player, and whether or ot he has potential to improve the offensive contribution. M'vila has terrific vision and passing range going for him, and he is smart.

Blablabla, I don't want a DM who can't play B2B or with limited passing...

babun1024 wrote:He run the midfield for Germany If the defence wasn't shambolic in a 3-4-3 system Germany would've won 0-3. He caused a goal and was generally sound
I don't get the thread either, he is not out of form anymore He just plays deeper for Germany and RM this season

He does play deeper, that is for sure. Defense shambolic? I remember seeing Babstuber and Hummels as CB's, can't remember the full backs. Think one was Aggo (or something). Never thought Babstuber was any good and Hummels is still pretty good so what was the cause of the shitty showing?

babun1024 wrote:

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:

babun1024 wrote:

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:It's important because everyone has a pull a little, share the load of work to make it even and balanced. It's interesting, it's one of the reason Di maria is so valuable to mou, because he makes up for the pressing the other guys arent doing at the moment. Overtime, it wont be needed if everyone is contributing the same.

I want everyone to take part, including Ozil, i am not a big fan of having specialists in my team.

Says someone who wants us to buy M'Vila I hate specialists as well

hey, cant blame me for weighting the + and - . we are linked to him in a more serious way than caughoffside, so it's worth talking about it.

Thing is, complete all around mifielders are something of a rarity, specially if they can also play DM. More often than not, they are fashioned by managers themselves.

discussion can give hindsight about the player, and whether or ot he has potential to improve the offensive contribution. M'vila has terrific vision and passing range going for him, and he is smart.

Blablabla, I don't want a DM who can't play B2B or with limited passing...

So why do you like Khedira then? He's a limited DM and a limited B2B. Basically nothing special at anything...

sportsczy wrote:

babun1024 wrote:

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:

babun1024 wrote:

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:It's important because everyone has a pull a little, share the load of work to make it even and balanced. It's interesting, it's one of the reason Di maria is so valuable to mou, because he makes up for the pressing the other guys arent doing at the moment. Overtime, it wont be needed if everyone is contributing the same.

I want everyone to take part, including Ozil, i am not a big fan of having specialists in my team.

Says someone who wants us to buy M'Vila I hate specialists as well

hey, cant blame me for weighting the + and - . we are linked to him in a more serious way than caughoffside, so it's worth talking about it.

Thing is, complete all around mifielders are something of a rarity, specially if they can also play DM. More often than not, they are fashioned by managers themselves.

discussion can give hindsight about the player, and whether or ot he has potential to improve the offensive contribution. M'vila has terrific vision and passing range going for him, and he is smart.

Blablabla, I don't want a DM who can't play B2B or with limited passing...

So why do you like Khedira then? He's a limited DM and a limited B2B. Basically nothing special at anything...

That's my point. If you want to replace him then give me someone better I said it to nick and others numerous of times

Sorry for going OT:

Is Mtfootball a double agent? A Barca troll?

babun1024 wrote:

sportsczy wrote:

babun1024 wrote:

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:

babun1024 wrote:

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:It's important because everyone has a pull a little, share the load of work to make it even and balanced. It's interesting, it's one of the reason Di maria is so valuable to mou, because he makes up for the pressing the other guys arent doing at the moment. Overtime, it wont be needed if everyone is contributing the same.

I want everyone to take part, including Ozil, i am not a big fan of having specialists in my team.

Says someone who wants us to buy M'Vila I hate specialists as well

hey, cant blame me for weighting the + and - . we are linked to him in a more serious way than caughoffside, so it's worth talking about it.

Thing is, complete all around mifielders are something of a rarity, specially if they can also play DM. More often than not, they are fashioned by managers themselves.

discussion can give hindsight about the player, and whether or ot he has potential to improve the offensive contribution. M'vila has terrific vision and passing range going for him, and he is smart.

Blablabla, I don't want a DM who can't play B2B or with limited passing...

So why do you like Khedira then? He's a limited DM and a limited B2B. Basically nothing special at anything...

That's my point. If you want to replace him then give me someone better I said it to nick and others numerous of times

who is better Babun?