18 juni 2010

Buy, Buy, Please Chelsea Buy Özil

Även publicerad på ChelseaVital.

The World Cup is the main showpiece for players to buy, and sell.

Some come from smaller nations and are not as well known before. I am thinking about a player like Alexis Sanchez from Chile that has probably popped up on many radars now. Others are well established and impress or not, like the Spanish big names of Villa, Torres, Silva, the last one on the Chelsea radar according to the papers. Still it is only in its infancy even if the first second-round games have raised the quality big time (and the refereeing has been lowered as much!)

So my first and most firm recommendation already is this one!

I said it last Summer, I started talking about it even before on ChelseaVital. Buy Mesut Özil from Werder Bremen. Or actually from Schalke 04 where he plied his trade before.

In my eyes he was the best player in the Euro2009 Under-21. He showed everything I like in a footballer. He describes himself as a blend of the technical Turkish football and German efficiency. I would say Bloodymindedness.

Still I did never believe he would develop as much as he has this year at Werder Bremen. At the Under-21 Euro he was good and a player at my taste, but he was not sensationally much better than teammate Marko Marin. But now he has taken a bigger step than Marin has. To me Özil have been the very best German player in two games, it was when he was taken off the field that Germany lost to Serbia. (Fatigue?)

Özil is second generation Turkisk immigrant in Germany. His parents came as kids from Anatolia to Gelsenkirchen in the German Ruhr-district. There Mesut was born on October 15, 1988. He will soon be 22 and he plays as he is at least 26 in maturity, creativity and stamina.

Supposedly he was on the Chelsea radar already before he left his native Gelsenkirchen, Schalke04, for Werder Bremen. And thankfully the rumours are now strong that Chelsea have rekindled our interest in Özil. With of course Citeh and the Arsenal. The price quoted is a steal at £20 million. Compare that to the asked for £40 million for the a little older Sergio Kün Aguero!

Please Roman, if you are going to spend, spend it on a player that has the potential of being a Chelsea great, Mesut Özil!

Özil like so many other young boys of Turkish heritage struggled with which country he would represent. He had represented Germany in all youth ages but still did not decide until early 2009 that he would play for Germany. Unlike our other Turkish-German wonderkid Gökhan Töre who chose Turkey. The pressure is immense on these kids to choose just Turkey. Actually the Turkey FA have had an office in Germany since 1998 with the sole purpose of identifying and persuading young Turkish-German boys to represent the country of their ancestors instead of the country they are born in. Germany of course has the largest turkish population outside Turkey in the world, but until the latter years now they have always been treated as a bit of second-hand citizens. It was not an easy choice for him and after he made it he had to close down his website after only a couple of hours due to the abuse he got mainly from Turkish people hating him for choosing Germany.

Mesut Özil represented many clubs as a kid, five in fact before he 2008 left for Werder Bremen where he has been sensational this year and a major reason why I picked them as possible winners of the Bundesliga (before Bayern bought Robben and had Ribery to stay!). They finished third which was way higher up than most experts had them as Werder went through a huge rejuvenation this season. His very first club was classic Westfalia 04. The longest time he represented, five years, RotWeiss Essen. (The Germans are as efficient in naming their clubs as making cars, RotWeiss simply means RedWhite and is of course their colours).

For Werder Bremen Mesut Özil has already, in two seasons, played 71 games and scored 13 times. Not quite Lampard figures but extremely good for a midfielder, playmaker. Özil is a classic playmaker in the mould of the Brazilian concept of a number 10. A number he easily should pick up after Joe Cole if Chelsea manage to get his signature on a contract. To me Chelsea could go as high as £30 million for him compared to the prices quoted for other players right now.

I find it to be an advantage that Mesut Özil is Germantrained and schooled. We have not had all that many German stars in the Premier League but I believe the ones that have been here (Chelsea have had Ballack and Huth before) have adapted more easily than most latin players have (Italians maybe the exception).

Mesut Özil describes his football this way himself:

"That is how I view myself (as a German with Turkish roots). My technique and feel for the ball comes from the Turkish in me. The German has given me discipline, attitude and give it all-feeling"

Which is also what I love to see in a footballer. Not the one or the other, but both!

So please Roman, get us a German to replace a great German!