German Football 2018/2019

[cgf]

Afd hate speech is the smallest part of this this crap. Ask people of Syria that got invaded by Erdogan, ask Kurds or journalists. You know it's not that easy. Ozil caused this trouble. and I give his advisers credit to get out of this by telling him to retire. He burned bridges with his twitter posting.

Nobody thinks Mesut letting Ilkay drag him into that shit was a good idea...believe me, I have railed about Erdogan's abuse of the kurds on here plenty...but it is pathetic the way that has been used to deflect blame from the real culprits of our exit. I'm honestly embarrassed by the DFB in a way I didn't even think I could be any more, given their extensive history of being a pathetic bunch of sniveling cowards.

And lol, the DFB burned any bridges that were left to be burned long before Mesut took to twitter.

 

[cgf]

Grindel and Löw won't survive this year at DfB.

You are such an optimist.

 

[Knave]

Imagine that. You would be criticized for defending a photo-op with a guy who threw tens of thousands of innocent teachers in jail.

Overrated. Part of the problem. Gone now. Good.

 

[JoemAvs]

You are such an optimist.

Yeah Jogi isn't leaving. Unless we get embarassed at the Nations League but even then I doubt it. Not likely at all.

I think Grindel might be vulnerable, though. He could be a passable surrogate for Seehofer (who does not seem likely to quit before the october elections) and might take the fall. Right now the left is very angry with how the discussion has shifted to the right in Germany and is out for blood and they can't get their primary target in Seehofer just now.

I could see Grindel having to take the fall for that which would be well deserved given that he deserves to get fired a thousand times over. I think the moral outrage over his behaviour after these statements from Özil will be gigantic and probably cost him his job.

Nobody likes that guy anyways at least I know noone who does. So I don't expect much resistance aside from the DFB itself but these guys probably will sacrifice Grindel as well if it keeps people from looking at their own roles in the organisation and in what has happened.
And in this case that would be a good thing for everyone involved. I don't know who will take over afterwards but I am not sure that there are many worse candidates. That said. We haven't exactly been good over the years when it comes to finding the right people for this job. So odds are the next guy won't be much better but he probably can't get worse so if that happens, everyone should be happy. It also would increase the odds of Bierhof getting canned which would be nice.

 

[Cassano]

Ozil will have either the best or worst season of his career after this. It'll be interesting to see how it goes.

 

[cgf]

Imagine that. You would be criticized for defending a photo-op with a guy who threw tens of thousands of innocent teachers in jail.

Overrated. Part of the problem. Gone now. Good.

Criticized...scapegoated by your coach & FA to deflect blame from their own incompetence & much worse performances of other NTers. Same thing, right? If it was just Mesut & Ilkay being criticized for it, then I wouldn't be on this side of the discussion with all of these silly lefties. Mesut was a f***ing idiot for letting himself get dragged into that situation and even being a dumb footballer, awed in the presence of political power, doesn't excuse such a dumb decision.

...though it's odd how Mesut is singled out for the incident when Gundogan is the much more political of the two, and a vocal Erdogan supporter. But even if Mesut had been the sole architect of the incident:

-it didn't turn Jogi into a vegetable who decided it was ok for him & his staff to be the only NT group not to attend the 2016 FIFA coaches conference
-it didn't go around telling Reus that he wouldn't start in the group stages because he was being "saved for the knockouts"
-it didn't pick it's russian base location based on where the knockout stages matches on a run to the finals would be located for the team who one that group.
-it didn't decide that you could forget about having midfielders covering the half spaces in front of the backline when you bomb your FBs as aggressively as we did
-it didn't convince Khedira that a real midfielder's job is to run straight to the opposition's box & sit on his ass while he watched Kroos, Ozil & the two CBs get overrun behind him.
-it didn't make Toni even slower than he used to be.
-it didn't turn Hummels into a moron for a day, in the opener.
-it didn't make Gomez miss multiple free headers right in front of goal.
-it didn't keep Brandt off the pitch or leave Sane & Kruse out of the team entirely.
-it didn't make Werner blame himself for a disaster against Mexico, just because the kid didn't take 2 chances in the opening 7 minutes of his first WC match that he often does.
-it didn't keep Mesut playing in his own half; which tends to make delivering assists trickier than operating near the opposition box...or waste the deadly balls into the box that he did deliver
-it didn't pick Plattenhart ahead of an actually useful player at another position...since Rudy gave us depth at FB as well as at DM
-it didn't make Draxler a player who will always be less than the sum of his tools because he takes way too long on the ball to be useful without acres of space...4 times in the South Korea match alone Draxler received the ball in promising scoring positions before taking so long to shoot that about 50 koreans had managed to line themselves up, directly in the flightpath of his shot. It was almost impressive how well he allowed the defense to reorganize itself whenever the cruelty of chance caused him to stumble into a scoring opportunity

Of the countless reasons that the German NT didn't deserve to advance from the group stages of this WC, a picture that Mesut & Ilkay took in London (while with their clubs) is so far down the list that the discussion it has received is beyond silly.

The people pointing to it...in a transparent effort to save their jobs...are not only embarrassments as Germans, but embarrassments as human beings.

 

[Knave]

So you're going to go with providing cover to your favorite athletes who provide cover to murderous dictators. Alright. That's your choice.

I do wonder what your reaction has been to athletes going on the White House visits. Hypocrites. Ignorant hypocrites.

 

[cgf]

So you're going to go with providing cover to your favorite athletes who provide cover to murderous dictators. Alright. That's your choice.

I do wonder what your reaction has been to athletes going on the White House visits. Hypocrites. Ignorant hypocrites.

Nah, that's just a strawman you created.

But we mustn't let a silly thing like reality stop you from pretending to know my politics & favorite athletes...despite my revulsion for Erdogan being very thoroughly documented on this board; since I tend not to be a fan of mass murderers and people that think ethnic cleansing is a good idea. I'm weird like that...

 

[Jersey Fresh]

Ozil must be the most naive person of all-time to think that photo isn't inherently political. Laying on the victimhood just a bit thick.

I understand it just fine. It's a win for the AfD only because stooges who only care about the theater of liberal democracy over the material impact of a politician think that Erdogan is a fundamentally more evil person than they could possibly elect. Meanwhile Merkel imposed brutal austerity on Greece and helped turn Libya into a country with open slave markets and an endless civil war just to depose another despot opposed to western interests, and now white Europe is furiously trying to keep out refugees from those countries its collective wars tore apart, and people like you whine that brown and black immigrants to Europe aren't appreciative enough of the prosperity Europe built off the countries that these immigrants left.

Merkel = Erdogan, got it.

 

[maclean]

Ozil must be the most naive person of all-time to think that photo isn't inherently political.

A footballer without a complex appreciation of geopolitics? Whatever is the world coming to...

 

[cgf]

Ozil must be the most naive person of all-time to think that photo isn't inherently political. Laying on the victimhood just a bit thick.

I suppose it's possible that he was just so in awe of political power that he didn't think much about it, which is a common event with athletes interacting with politicians...but that doesn't make him less of an idiot for it. Mesut should've known that Ilkay is very political & active in Turkey...and he knows better than any of us the difficult position he's in, being too turkish for some (shittier) germans & being too much of an assimilating sellout for some (also shitty) turco-germans.

So even though I can understand his personal struggle with not wanting to snub the official head of the turkish state & further antagonize the Uncle Tom cries he gets; he's an idiot for not predicting that he'd get a lot of blowback for meeting with that sick f*** & giving his tacit approval to his politics.

...though no one can tell me with a straight face that Mesut Özil, should've anticipated back then that Jogi & the DFB would be throwing him under the bus for the NT being eliminated in the group stages. That is some first-degree blame-shifting-bull**** and he has a right to pissed about it.

 

[cgf]

A footballer without a complex appreciation of geopolitics? Whatever is the world coming to...

People always under-estimated what f***ing morons a lot of these guys are.

 

[Jersey Fresh]

A footballer without a complex appreciation of geopolitics? Whatever is the world coming to...

Lol you don't need a "complex appreciation" of geopolitics to understand the implications and ripple effect of that photo, not to mention the political value of the photo op for Erdogan while he is actively campaigning (as much as you can call it that in Turkey).

Besides, did you even read his statement? Ozil seems to have a more than passing grasp of the domestic (German) and Turkish political climate.

 

[maclean]

I think it's also worth noting that people of a certain background who grow up in a different country often have a glorified and mythologised view of their homeland. Heck, as do many who did grow up there. At the same time, as you mentioned, the idea of meeting with important people is attractive in and of itself, and how many athletes can you think of that actually take a moral stand on anything? So, sure one can lose respect for him over it, but I wouldn't blow it out of proportion.

 

[Jersey Fresh]

I suppose it's possible that he was just so in awe of political power that he didn't think much about it, which is a common event with athletes interacting with politicians...but that doesn't make him less of an idiot for it. Mesut should've known that Ilkay is very political & active in Turkey...and he knows better than any of us the difficult position he's in, being too turkish for some (****tier) germans & being too much of an assimilating sellout for some (also ****ty) turco-germans.

So even though I can understand his personal struggle with not wanting to snub the official head of the turkish state & further antagonize the Uncle Tom cries he gets; he's an idiot for not predicting that he'd get a lot of blowback for meeting with that sick **** & giving his tacit approval to his politics.

...though no one can tell me with a straight face that Mesut Özil, should've anticipated back then that Jogi & the DFB would be throwing him under the bus for the NT being eliminated in the group stages. That is some first-degree blame-shifting-bull**** and he has a right to pissed about it.

There are two parallel issues going on here to me: the disproportionate blame being laid at Ozil's feet for Germany's exit from the WC and the Erdogan photo (certainly the two things intersect to some degree, but I'd have a lot more sympathy for him if he at least acknowledged why that photo made the non-political point scoring/German-Turk mistrusting people react the way they did).

His statement deflects almost totally his responsibility for the latter, instead claiming it's solely borne of racism and political point scoring. Those two things may absolutely be involved to some degree, but plenty of others just find the association more than a little distasteful. He should accept his role in that and I seriously find it quite hard to believe he doesn't understand the other motivating factors for all the blowback.

I agree with your last paragraph, but again, as an already polarizing player, he made himself a terribly easy target.

 

[NJ07102]

Mesut should've known that Ilkay is very political & active in Turkey...

And of course Ilkay is doing business in Turkey like buying a former city council building in Balikesir to transform it into a shopping mall. A deal like that surely works much better if you have good connections into politics.

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

In the US you get castrated for not visiting the president or something as pointless as "respecting" a rag and song.

Ozil getting abused for visiting a world leader...

 

[cgf]

There are two parallel issues going on here to me: the disproportionate blame being laid at Ozil's feet for Germany's exit from the WC and the Erdogan photo (certainly the two things intersect to some degree, but I'd have a lot more sympathy for him if he at least acknowledged why that photo made people react the way they did).

His statement deflects almost totally his responsibility for the latter, instead claiming it's solely borne of racism and political point scoring. Those two things may absolutely be involved to some degree, but plenty of others just find the association more than a little distasteful. He should accept his role in that and I seriously find it quite hard to believe he doesn't understand the other motivating factors for all the blowback.

I agree with your last paragraph, but again, as an already polarizing player, he made himself a terribly easy target.

Agreed that there are two separate points. 1) that it was idiotic of mesut & he got deserved shit for it before the tourney (including from myself).

And 2) that we're still talking about it now because xenophobes, racists & right wingers jumped on that stupid thing...especially after the blatherings of some incompetent f***s who were (and still are) trying desperately to save their jobs by shifting all of the blame onto the muslim guy who did a dumb thing months ago.

 

[cgf]

And of course Ilkay is doing business in Turkey like buying a former city council building in Balikesir to transform it into a shopping mall. A deal like that surely works much better if you have good connections into politics.

You're starting to touch on some of the reasons why I blame Ilkay for orchestrating that incident & only blame Mesut for being naive/dumb enough to get dragged into it by Gundo.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

Ozil's declaration did not concede that meeting Erdogan was a mistake and made no attempt to apologize for it. While some of what he said isn't untrue, especially about the World Cup, it's way too defensive and seems to imply that it *all* is just a right-wing conspiracy against him.

All those media sources who criticized Özil are typically very anti-AfD. The issue isn't an AfD one, as a good portion of the criticism vs Erdogan comes from the Left including Turkish leftists in Germany. Cem Özdemir, hardly a friend of the Right, has been one of Özil's major critics on this.

There is of course a difference between what the AfD or even the CSU may see as wrong in Özil's behavior vs what leftist critics criticize. The former would be angered by any show of Turkish national sentiment by active representatives of Germany, while the latter merely object to a show of Turkish national sentiment that implies support for an aggressive autocrat like Erdogan.

But Özil doesnt himself recognize that difference and lashes out vs all of it instead of addressing the fact that Erdogan isn't just any old president of another country. That's a mistake on his part or more likely his advisors who crafted that statement.

Regarding Matthäus..the "double standard" accusation is way out of context. Matthäus was visiting Putin as part of a FIFA delegation while Russia hosted FIFA's major showpiece event. Nobody would get the idea that somehow Matthäus is undermining the German position via Russia or furthering Putin's influence among Russians or German because again it's a rather different context. Same as when Theresa May meets Erdogan in official bilateral capacity. It just strikes me as immature by Özil to lash out like that without accepting he also made a mistake.

 

[samabam]

The idea of playing for the national team because of pride for the country is laughable to me, it's money and nothing else, cynic but true.
So I don't care about politics in the context of the national team and with that I also have to conceed that the right to free speech grants Özil the right to be photographed with Erdogan and then not commenting about it. It doesnt matter to me, I didn't see the national team or anything surrounding it different after "Erdogate".

Good on Özil to come to his owm conclusion of the proceedings and do what seems right to him, and yes, I totally agree that Grindel has no foundation to comment on anything.
Weak from Özil that he is incapable of admitting his own mistakes and placing all the blame away from him - but that's nothing Özil exclusive (see Kroos, Toni - right after the Sweden Game).

 

[Deficient Mode]

Ozil must be the most naive person of all-time to think that photo isn't inherently political. Laying on the victimhood just a bit thick.


Merkel = Erdogan, got it.

She has probably caused as much suffering yeah

 

[Deficient Mode]

Nice goal. Didn't see many like this last year.

 

[Arcade Fire]

Özil and the DFB deserve each other. Idiots on top of idiots, really.

 

[ecemleafs]

Puli gonna rip up the buli under favre