As you would expect, Mesut Ozil's £42.5m move to Arsenal
has reverberated through his home country – all the way down to the
nether regions of Regionalliga West, the fourth division. Rot-Weiss
Essen, a traditional powerhouse who have fallen on hard times, were
jubilant when they heard the news on Monday; they are expecting a
handsome windfall of €800,000 (£675,000) as compensation for developing
him over a decade ago. Schalke, where the son of Turkish immigrants
played from 2005-08, are due a similar figure.The real benefit to
German football of this record transfer – the 24-year-old is now its
most expensive footballer – will go far beyond financial considerations,
however. Ozil's "escape from circus Real Madrid" (Süddeutsche Zeitung) has been widely seen as a smart decision, both for him and, by extension, the national team. Germany's
manager, Joachim Löw, certainly will not have to fret about his
sensitive playmaker being frozen out at the Bernabéu in a World Cup
season any more.Ozil will instead find a team playing his kind of football,
two German team-mates to keep him company and a manager who can explain
his ideas in German. Most importantly, Ozil will go from feeling like
the fifth wheel at Carlo Ancelotti's Madrid to being the star attraction
in north London, and Arsène Wenger's personal favourite. The Frenchman
tried to sign him first seven years ago, before he moved to Werder
Bremen."I'm a player who needs the confidence [of the manager]," Ozil explained to dfb.tv,
the official channel of the national team, on Tuesday. "At the weekend,
I was certain that I would stay at Real Madrid, but afterwards I
realised that I did not have the faith from the coach or the bosses. I
am really looking forward to [joining Arsenal]
because I have the faith of the coach. I had spoken to him at length on
the telephone, he explained his plans and that he has faith in me –
that is what I need as a player."Germany's sporting director,
Oliver Bierhoff, joked about a "hectic" start to the international week.
The former striker had facilitated the deal just as he had done two
years ago, when Per Mertesacker was signed on deadline day
by the Gunners. You could just sense the slightest sense of
exasperation in the 45-year-old's voice – why do they always leave it so
late? – but it was in his own interest to see it get done. Ensuring
Ozil got out of the Madrid pressure cooker had become a thing of
national importance. He had no longer been feeling "the trust inside the
club", Bierhoff explained: "Ancelotti had perhaps different ideas."
'I am really looking forward to joining Arsenal because I have the
faith of the coach,' says Mesut Ozil. Photograph: Gerard
Julien/AFP/Getty Images
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's Spanish correspondent Paul Ingendaay
took a more negative line on Ozil's departure to the Emirates. The
outrageously gifted playmaker did not impose himself in any of Madrid's
big matches in the past three seasons, he recalled, and wryly noted that
his at times breathtakingly elegant performances were "the stuff of
dreams, but not of trophies".The move to Arsenal – "a club that's
always involved at the top but never tends to win anything" – amounted
to him failing in the Spanish capital and was not simply a consequence
of new arrivals Gareth Bale and Isco stealing his limelight. "The air at
Real had been thin for him before," Ingendaay insisted.There is
some truth to that. Serious seeds of doubt about his future at Madrid
were first sown in a meeting with club management in mid-May.Mustapha
Ozil, the player's father and agent, expected the president, Florentino
Pérez, to offer a contract extension beyond 2016 and improved wages
that reflected his popularity with the supporters, but the club coolly
professed contentment with the existing status quo. Feelers were put out
to a number of Premier League sides over the course of the summer.A
combination of Ozil's wage demands – he was already on €5m a year after
tax at Madrid, roughly the equivalent of £150,000 per week before tax
in the UK – as well as Madrid's preoccupation with incoming players did
not lead to any concrete negotiations before the beginning of the
weekend, however. Then Arsenal called.As late as last Wednesday,
when Ozil was professing his love for Real to German journalists at a
Madrid event organised by his sponsors Adidas, he firmly expected to
stay at the club. Madrid soon made their plans – or lack of them – for
him clear, though. "Real Madrid mobbed him towards Arsenal," was Bild's
take on the affair."I wasn't surprised, I had known about it for two or three days," confirmed his former Los Blancos
team-mate Sami Khedira, possibly the only German who has seemed upset
about Ozil's London move. "I regret the decision, it could weaken
[Madrid], from a sporting point of view," said the 26-year-old in
Munich.Bierhoff carefully suggested that Germany's No10 will
"have to adapt to new conditions" in England after leaving a league that
seemed more tailored to his lightness of touch. "In Spain, the style
suited him, naturally," Bierhoff admitted, "but he will mature [in
England]."A similar hope for Germany's most beautiful but also
frail flower was expressed in Süddeutsche. "Wenger is someone who
understands artists," mused the broadsheet, "[at Arsenal] somebody like
him could find ideal conditions to blossom."
