No Irish, No Yanks, No Clogs - FIFA World Cup 2018

I don't generally like anything an Arsenal player does, but I think Ozil's statement is quite good.

I am impressed at how he can write in a long series of proper sentences.

“For me Mesut Özil has been a poor excuse of a footballer for years...”

“...Should ask himself when was the last time he won a tackle.”

“...His 35 million follower boys that don’t really exist in the real world”

Bayern President Uli Hoeneß’s response to Mesut Özil’s statement.

— Archie Rhind-Tutt (@archiert1) July 23, 2018

“He has played shit for years.”

“Every time we played against Arsenal we’d always go through him because we knew he is a weak point.” [BILD]

“Last time he won a tackle was before the 2014 World Cup.”

Bayern President Uli Hoeness with more on Mesut Özil and his statement.

— Archie Rhind-Tutt (@archiert1) July 23, 2018

rating one of the worlds top creeative talents by his defensive abilities is a sign of PFM absolute moronic 100% mental deficiency

imo

He has played shit for years though, fam.

uli h otm

I know but he keeps creating as many chances as most of the top players fam

its a headscratcher almost as if he does his job and others dont

wonder why hed be singled out for criticism

Tell you what I'll go outside and asking a random Arsenal fan.

Mesut Sterling lol

|||||||| it's a monday morning in 2018 and you've just otm'd uli "I was never a fan of the World Cup being held in South Africa, or anywhere on the African continent, as long as safety aspects are not clarified 100 per cent" hoeness attacking a player he clearly doesn't like on ethnic grounds

honigstein's summary: http://www.espn.co.uk/football/team/germany/481/blog/post/3571821/the-story-and-reasons-behind-mesut-ozils-decision-to-quit-the-german-national-team?src=com

I find it very, very strange that senior figures in German football are publicly attacking Ozil (which seems to be the case from what I see here).

Sure, English football is full of abuse and knocking copy. But you would never get, say, Greg Clarke, Martin Glenn, or indeed Prince William, or David Dein or David Gill, coming out and attacking Sterling -- even if he actually resigned from playing England. They would express regret, thank him for his services, say 'we all have to learn a lot of lessons ... Raheem's made his decision and we respect that, but we have to move on to the qualifiers'.

The German behaviour seems bizarre.

That's spot on. xp

I find it bizarre you find this bizarre, Pinefox. Everyone's uncle will have an opinion about it, mostly for worse but still. When asked by the press no doubt they'll answer. It's the land of Uli and Franz B. who hover above the national football still. I doubt this will be different anywhere else. And I *especially* doubt your reading of Englands vips of yore giving Sterling a pass.

I think one would have to draw a significant distinction between people running the national FA, and grandees generally and at clubs.

The latter, I can imagine expressing opinions - as I see Hoeness has done. In England Alan Shearer could be such a figure.

The former, in England, are very PR-conscious, business types and media frontpeople to some extent; they are the ones I was mainly referring to.

I don't think Uli Hoeness is in any equivalent to Prince William tbf. Prince Philip maybe.

sullivan/gold/sugar

There's a lot of Africans where I work and didn't notice any great enthusiasm for France, on the contrary I was told by about three different people they wouldn't support France. These are all Africans from Anglophone countries, one of my closest colleagues almost said anyone but France, but she's from the English speaking part io Cameroon, which I think is significant!

So if Özil has been playing like shit for years now then blame Low for selecting him, I don't understand that.

Plenty of people blamed Wenger for picking him.

I'm glad he pointed out that no one made a fuss about Matthäus meeting with Putin.

glorious

Mesut Ozil's agent, Erkot Sogut, tears into Bayern Munich's Uli Hoeness 🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪 pic.twitter.com/je1MxLNnmr

— 101 Great Goals (@101greatgoals) July 24, 2018

im fully teamozil here

second captains had a bit of a go at him thought that was bollocks

im fully in favor of that teardown of uli.

still ozil completely daft to treat fucking erdogan to a t-shirt and a photo

Germans in "stabbed in the back" narrative shockah

Yes I agree with ERKOT SOGUT in his attack on Hoeness. It is good.

I think I also agree that people should not pose with either Erdogan or Putin, who are both terrible.

Though I suppose every player in the World Cup Final was forced to pose with (or near) Putin.

you might question the anti-erdogan outrage of citizens of EU countries who have backed him for years when its mesut ozil who feels its full force

Probably time for people to stop pretending that Erdogan is uniquely terrible in a footballing world where Arsenal are doing jolly photo ops with Paul Kagame and the next World Cup is in fucking Qatar.

innit!

Probably also time to stop whatabouttisms like 'others in the footballing world are doing jolly photo ops w terrible people too' because it doesn't mean Ozil can't be called out for doing the same. xp

If only we could move all (terrible) politicians and racist pundits to a Gulag.

It isn't a whatabouttism if your entire point is that Ozil is being held to a racist double-standard.

it's about the capacity in which you make these appearances and their significance. I don't really see how it's my place to police the way ppl from a given diaspora navigate relationships with their ancestral homeland. I know a few ppl are v much unconvinced by this "respecting the office" distinction (which is obv particularly tricky when the holder of that office created/transformed it for himself) but it's a v common compromise and often useful & reckoning with erdogan's political project is only one factor in his thinking here and can be much better done elsewhere

I've just remembered something that happened yesterday, apropos of nothing in particular.. I was reading about this story online at work yesterday when one of my colleagues, who is a Turkish Kurd, saw the offending photograph of Ozil and Erdogan and said, "I hate those two people".

She is definitely not a football fan btw!

This piece is a pretty excellent summary:

https://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2018/7/23/17603426/mesut-ozil-retirement-germany-erdogan-turkey

Perhaps now he has quit GER, Ozil will play better for AFC?

He has been given the #10 shirt.

This piece is a pretty excellent summary:

https://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2018/7/23/17603426/mesut-ozil-retirement-germany-erdogan-turkey

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, July 24, 2018 11:47 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, this is good.

It's the same in the Netherlands. If they do well, their Dutch, if they don't, they're 'of Moroccan descent'. You'll never hear this about the Dutch basketball or ice hockey team being made up mostly of players born in Northern America, or the table tennis team made up of players born mostly in China. Because Morrocans are Dutch racists prime target and responsible for everything wrong here.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-34909845

(Guy needs to do a survey on England fans being English when they behave well and British when they behave badly)

some good stuff in that but this -

Respect for the office is not an adequate explanation or apology for taking a photo with a man who is responsible for heinous and repressive actions

- is purity politics logic, might feel good to declaim, but like not negotiating with terrorists it's deluded posturing. the notion that this is a significant or concerning part of the normalisation of the erdogan regime is absurd. there's such dishonesty and wilful blindness in seeing everything through this lens.

ogmorotm

raheem sterling treatment comparable

daniel day lewis british winning oscar irish drunk at afterparty of oscars relevant

Scottish star Andy Mürray PLUMMETS to 999 in the rankings (soon to be rehabilitated to British when he's winning again).

Ozil is a public figure - his remarks and yes, who he does take a picture with should be given some scrutiny. So does "respect for the office" also mean respect for all the actions carried out by that office? I understand its overstated in terms of giving legitimacy to any regime but if you going to play that game.

it doesn't, or it doesn't necessarily

im willing to take his diasporic explanation at face value tbh. for me it has a ring of good faith argument that the criticism of the picture, his lack of teutonic affiliation, his scapegoating for the faults if his national side, all lack

you could circle all day around the rights and wrongs of what a footballer posing for a picture with a distasteful but (legitimate)(sub in better word here) head of state of his ancestral home means to the footballer as person, the footballer as targeted immigrant, the footballer as footballer, the footballer as marketing tool, the home country, the foster country, the press of the latter, the right of the latter, the message boards of ilx

its all imo bollocks tho. in context or not. the backlash held as proportionate to the sin or not.

the guy can be proud to have risen to the level he has to be asked to meet the president of his grandparents country without it being abringing endorsement of policies (people who look to footballers and others for ringing endorsements of policies are...cunts btw)

they're cunts and i hope they die

#startedreasonable

"acknowledged" for "legitimate"

or just no descriptor at all but yeah ykwis

If a US footballer, based in the UK, had had a PR cheesy photo taken with Trump during his visit that would really have gone down well.