by Mesut Özil
Every newbie at Arsenal has to stand on a chair and sing, surrounded by the rest of the team. Now, I don’t have the most beautiful voice in the world, unfortunately. Even with all the technological wizardry at his fingertips in the recording studio, Jan Delay wasn’t able to disguise this. In 2010 the German hip-hop artist, a former member of Absolute Beginner, came up with the idea of recording a song with me. Jan Delay, who’s a big Werder fan, wrote the rap ‘Large’ for us, in which I sing – if it can be described as that – the following: ‘My captain says, Hey, you chicken, compared to you I’m a European champion. What’s up?’ In one verse we took the mickey out of Bremen by singing, ‘We stink of fish ’cause we’re from Werder.’ And I rapped about my ambition, which unfortunately I didn’t quite manage to fulfil: ‘I’m young, born in the 80s and I’m gonna win the cup in South Africa.’
It was a real hoot and I’d do it again any time. I can’t sing for toffee. I can’t hit a single note and have no sense of rhythm. As a child I never learnt to read music or play an instrument. I’m totally unmusical. But because I thought Jan Delay was cool and his idea was amusing, I didn’t have a problem joining in with a large serving of self-deprecation.
Shortly before the game in Sunderland I wondered whether I should sing this song to mark my debut. But because of my hopeless voice I decided on a song that everyone knew and everyone could join in with. Ideally my voice would be lost amongst the general caterwauling. Climbing onto the chair, I launched into ‘Kiss Kiss’ by Tarkan. I began really quietly, my teammates started booing, so then I got louder until, with no inhibitions and enjoying every second, I was squeaking at the top of my voice, ‘Kaderim puskullu belam. Yakalarsam.’ And all the rest joined in, ‘Kiss. Kiss.’
With my singing I’d endeared myself to my teammates. Even if my performance didn’t come close to Petr Čech’s following his move from Chelsea to Arsenal in 2015. When we stopped in Singapore before the start of the season it was his turn. He came up with a brilliant rap in which he talked about certain players, dedicating individual verses to them. He didn’t say anything about the manager, except for, ‘I’d rather keep quiet about you, or I’ll find myself on the bench.’
When I sang I took care that none of my teammates filmed it on their phones. Čech also rapped without any incriminating ‘proof’. Only one song has been captured on video. The one that the Arsenal fans sang for me some time later. They created a special song for me, which they sang in the stadium and also in the London Underground. It goes, ‘We’ve got Özil. Mesut Özil. I just don’t think you understand. He’s Arsène Wenger’s man. He’s better than Zidane. We have got Mesut Özil.’
The first time I heard this I couldn’t believe my ears. When thousands of people are singing for you, you get overcome with happiness. I loved the Schalke fans. I was crazy for the Bremen supporters. The Madrilenians regularly made my hair stand on end. But I’d never had my own personal mini-anthem before.
Whenever I hear the song I feel as if I’ve grown. As if I’m not just 1.80m, but am towering above people who are 1.90. My shoulders grow broader. My head becomes clearer. And the desire to be part of Arsenal’s next victory becomes greater. Just once I’d love to go on a tube train where thousands of fans are singing my song, without anyone knowing who I am.
But I’m afraid that’s never going to happen. I lead a far too secluded life in London for that. I can scarcely leave my house. Why? Because it’s no fun to wander around in public when your face is familiar. Besides, never underestimate the paparazzi in London. When I was still quite new in the British capital and had just moved into my house, they laid siege to me in an extraordinarily intrusive way. Photographers stood outside my front door day and night with their cameras and high-zoom lenses. Not only that – there were incidents that shocked me to the core.
Lukas Podolski had recommended a Turkish restaurant called Likya near Golders Green, where I was planning to go one evening with a few friends and my agent. I just had to get out, empty my head a bit, because in the Champions League I’d just missed a stupid penalty against Bayern and we were behind for the return leg of our last-16 match.
I got into the car, the wrought-iron gates to my drive opened and we carefully drove out. At once photographers were on us. They followed us through London, virtually sticking to my bumper. Completely irresponsible.
After a few kilometres I pulled over, got out of the car and spoke to our pursuers. ‘Look, guys, I’m out for a private evening. We just want to go for something to eat. Please respect my privacy.’ I was perfectly friendly towards them. But it didn’t help one bit. No sooner had I set off again than the pursuit continued. So we decided that rather than go for dinner we’d return home. When I arrived I saw that even more photographers had gathered outside my property.
‘Mesut,’ my agent Erkut said, ‘please drive really carefully. You mustn’t even brush one of those photographers.’ I rolled onto the drive at a snail’s pace while the paparazzi snapped away though the windows. A dreadful explosion of flashes you’d just want to run or drive away from. All of a sudden there was a crunch. A photographer’s elbow slammed against my wing mirror, which clanked to the ground. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Then the photographer gave a loud scream and his face contorted with pain. He was holding his elbow and rolling his eyes as if on the verge of collapse. A moment later he cried out, ‘He drove into me. The guy wanted to run me over.’
I sat in the car as if paralysed. I hadn’t done anything. My car had been entering the drive at less than 5 kilometres per hour. Nobody had been that close that I could have touched them. ‘Did you see that?’ I asked Erkut, who was looking as shocked as me. ‘Yes,’ was all he said. And then, a few seconds later, ‘Keep calm. Let’s not react.’ This was the lousiest attempt anyone had ever made to provoke me. Even worse than the coward David Villa in that Barça–Real game.
The nasty paparazzo act continued. He called an ambulance that arrived a few minutes later and attended to him. The police came too and rang at my door. They breathalysed me – of course the result was negative – and allowed us to describe the incident from our point of view.
The officers remained totally calm and were suspicious of the story that the paparazzi, who were all saying the same crap, had dished up. ‘If you like,’ Erkut suggested, ‘you can check the footage from the CCTV cameras that are all over the place here, in the street and on the houses. You’ll see that Mesut did nothing of what those men are claiming.’ The officers believed our story anyway. But it was a good feeling that, had there been any doubt, we could have got hold of clear evidence that the paparazzi were lying.
The journalists wanted to see me lose it. They were craving pictures showing me leaping out of the car and going for their colleagues, which they could then sell on to the newspapers for a tidy sum. When that didn’t work they tried to present me as a reckless driver. I know that being photographed is part of my life. I know that being in the public eye means you have less privacy. But this attempt to manipulate me and make me look bad went way too far.
A similar thing happened a few years before, after my grandmother died. She passed away during the 2010 World Cup. On that occasion too I was hassled by a disrespectful pursuit.
A few days before the last-16 game against England my dear grandmother Münevver died at the age of 73. My father had originally decided not to tell me until after the World Cup so that I wouldn’t lose concentration during the tournament. But my brother felt that I ought to be told the sad family news straightaway. Because the funeral was due to take place within a short time, he was worried that a journalist might get wind of the news and publish it. ‘Just imagine if Mesut found out about it from a paper rather than us,’ Mutlu said. My father agreed with him.
My grandmother always spent several months in Germany each year. She’d stay with us in the flat. A wonderful time for us children, full of love and warmth. She always called me after my games and congratulated me if I’d scored a goal o
r assisted.
Now she was dead. It was bad enough that I couldn’t say goodbye to her personally. It was bad enough that I couldn’t be with the family at her funeral in the Uzunalioğlu Mahallesi mosque near Hışıroğlu. But to be pursued after the World Cup by photographers who took photos of me standing by her grave, that overstepped the mark.
It was the moment when I wanted to say goodbye to her. When I wanted to be alone in my grief and sadness. When I wanted to be just the private Mesut Özil rather than the footballer, the celebrity. I was someone who’d lost a person I loved. Who just wanted to reminisce, which is very hard to do when your peace is disturbed by cameras clicking away behind you.
I don’t think many people can imagine what it means to be permanently in the limelight. It’s often nice, and of course I enjoy it too. But when the focus is on you round the clock it can be a real burden too. I have a great life, a very exclusive life that many people couldn’t afford. But my fame also has its price. Because the truth is that I live life in a golden cage.
José Mourinho once said, ‘Football has given me everything. But football’s taken everything from me too.’ A very accurate comment. Thanks to football I’ve been able to make a good life for myself, and also for my parents and family, free of all financial worries. Football has opened up a world to us we would never have been able to enter in normal circumstances.
Football has made me rich. But I’m also mighty poor at the same time. Poor in life experience. I can only lead a private life within my own four walls. I can’t wander down an arcade from shop to shop, or go for a stroll with my friends. I can’t go out climbing on the high ropes or to the cinema. At best I have to go in disguise and even then my cover’s usually blown. People will immediately stare at me to see how much popcorn I’m eating and whether I’m drinking Coke or water. Every movement will be captured by some mobile and then broadcast around the world. And I have to endure hundreds of selfies.
That isn’t a problem in theory. It’s also part of the job I enjoy doing. But not in those rare moments when I’d like to be completely private. Sometimes people can’t understand the rare occasions when I refuse a selfie. They think, ‘Why should he react like that just because of a photo?’ But they don’t realise that I’ve already had 40 or 50 selfies taken that day. It doesn’t occur to them that I might want to move on, have an appointment, or just don’t happen to feel great.
I would have loved to get to know London better. I’d love to go on the London Eye, that big wheel by the Thames. Discover the city on the top of a double-decker bus. I’d love to be a tourist, an unknown person, to be able to do all these normal things that everyone does from day to day.
For me every day is the same. I train or I play. Then I drive home and hang around with my mates. In truth I hardly know London at all. It must be a fantastic city with so many sights. But because it’s so stressful I rarely leave my golden cage, but instead play a permanent game of hide-and-seek.
This is why I’m already looking forward to my retirement from football. When I’m less popular, when the media and fans pounce on other players and I’m able to catch up on many of the things I’ve missed. I learn about the world mainly from the television. I watch documentaries for hours – BBC History programmes as well as ones about the world’s tallest skyscrapers. And most of all I like watching animal documentaries – I’m especially keen on lions.
After the 2012 European Championship I vanished into thin air. I was really annoyed by our elimination at the hands of Italy. By this stupid 2–1 defeat in the semi-final.
When we were knocked out two years earlier in South Africa, I could cope with that. Although it was disappointing, the team was still so young and inexperienced that we had to admit that even reaching the semi-final was a huge success. The defeat there was acceptable. I could be pleased with many positive things even though we’d fallen just short of our goal.
It wasn’t so simple after our defeat against Italy. I couldn’t stand seeing blue football jerseys. It made me furious when I heard the name Mario Balotelli. After the semi-final I couldn’t stand that man, even though he’d never done anything to me personally. But for me his name was associated with that bitter failure that was somehow unacceptable.
I was livid with myself. And at my performance. I was hurt by the discussions in Germany where overnight the papers were full of criticism again. There was a ‘loser gene’ in the German team, they said. And it was claimed that Joachim Löw had lost ‘some of his magic’. In the press conference following the defeat he was asked by journalists whether he was going to chuck in his job as German manager.
Once more: our performance in the semi-final must be viewed critically. There’s no getting away from it. We weren’t good. But we were the youngest team in the tournament, so it’s hardly surprising that our performances fluctuated, even if none of this was on purpose. And we did reach the semi-final, where we had our opportunities. Mats Hummels had a big chance early on, which wasn’t a goal only because Andrea Pirlo cleared the ball from the line. A little later Gianluigi Buffon foiled a long-range shot from Toni Kroos with a good save.
It was perfectly legitimate after this to say it was ‘unlikely’ we would win the World Cup in 2014. But to claim that the semi-final had been contested between ‘wimps and men’, as the tabloids did, was insulting and bore no relation to the game. ‘Even when the anthem was being played, many of the 27.98 million Germans watching on TV had the feeling: we’re going to lose tonight,’ Bild wrote. It went on, ‘The Italians belted out their anthem with fervour and power. Even Mario Balotelli, the son of Ghanaian immigrants. The goalie Buffon with his eyes closed. It was with this passion that the Italians strode onto the pitch.’ At the end Bild concluded, ‘Show me how you sing, and I’ll tell you how you’ll play . . .’
If there was truth to this logic we would have succumbed to the defeat of our lives in the semi-final on 8 July 2014 in Belo Horizonte.
I’ll never forget the expression on the face of David Luiz, Brazil’s captain, in the tunnel shortly before kick-off. On his right shoulder was the hand of Júlio César, the Brazilian keeper. Each player had his right hand on the shoulder of the player in front. And that’s how the Brazilians marched into the Estádio Governador Magalhães Pinto. Eleven players, lined up like pearls on a string. Very closely linked. As they entered the Brazilians had to scuttle a bit with short strides, so as not to step on the heel of the man in front.
We go into the stadium as we always do. Each for himself. First Philipp Lahm, then Manuel Neuer, behind him Mats Hummels, Thomas Müller, Toni Kroos, Benedikt Höwedes, Miroslav Klose, Sami Khedira, Jérôme Boateng and then me before Bastien Schweinsteiger.
We don’t grip onto each other. We don’t form a chain. I wonder what the assessment would have been had we lost. Would the media have claimed that the Germans weren’t as closely bonded as the Brazilians? Would it have been said that the Brazilians were a team of 11 friends in which everyone fought for each other, whereas the Germans only thought of themselves, as was clearly evident when they filed onto the pitch?
When our national anthem is being played I go through my usual procedure prior to kick-off. I pray. And don’t join in the singing. Jérôme Boateng doesn’t sing either. Nor does Sami Khedira.
All of the Brazilians are singing. Without exception. Although the term ‘singing’ is a pure understatement. If you watch Luiz Gustavo, see the ardour with which he bawls the Hino Nacional Brasiliero, it can be terrifying. It seems as if his singing could be heard in the whole of Brazil without amplification. David Luiz and Júlio César are shouting the house down. With such power! With such determination! With such might! With such passion! Every single Brazilian sings louder, more passionately and enthusiastically than our players.
If this rule of football really did exist – ‘Show me how you sing, and I’ll tell you how you’ll play . . .’ – then Brazil would have devoured us. They would have beaten us 7–1. Not the other way round.
After our defeat to Italy, Pirlo, who’d set up the first goal with a dream pass to Balotelli, came up to me and took my arm. ‘You’re a class player,’ he whispered to me. ‘Your team has played a great European Championship. You’ll win a cup some time.’ It was almost like a father taking his son by the arm and psyching him up after a failure. So intimate. So close. So respectful. But most of all so honest. It wasn’t just superficial jabber, a gesture for the cameras. Not a brief pat on the shoulder before switching to celebratory mode. Pirlo was really very sorry to see me looking so worn out and sad. He knew exactly what it felt like for a competitive sportsman to be knocked out like that. It was an unbelievable gesture that I made a mental note of – and recalled two years later when I copied it myself.
When we thrashed Brazil 7–1 in the World Cup on their home turf I caught sight of David Luiz standing on the pitch. He didn’t know what to do with himself and was just drifting aimlessly across the Belo Horizonte stadium. And so I grabbed him, pressed him close to me, his head on my chest, to whisper a few words of comfort in his ear. I even apologised for the scale of our victory.
Even though Pirlo’s words helped me at that difficult time in 2012, it still took a while to get over that defeat. So I booked a holiday, almost away from civilisation. Away from the mobile network, from being permanently contactable. Away from my normal life. Away from football. Out of the golden cage. And into deepest Africa. Into a world where goals and passes aren’t crucial. Where I’m not centre stage, but animals and nature capture the imagination.
In the wilderness of Africa I managed to forget these blue jerseys. I learned to laugh again. And most of all I had the freedom to move around without anyone being interested in who I was. I didn’t have to answer to anyone about why I hadn’t kept chasing Pirlo before he passed to Giorgio Chiellini. The Australian mother who’d given her daughter this trip as a reward for having finished school was as uninterested in a photo or autograph as the couple that had been coming on safari every summer for the past ten years.