To that rare species of footballers of immense talent, magic and congenital irregularity that defines midfielders belonged Mesut Ozil, a player who is retiring now, but long gone. His long decline began in his last days in London and ended yesterday in that graveyard of elephants that is the Turkish league. It was the refuge from scintillating major league football, the haunt for a dying position, and the ultimate decision of a man who always had acrimonious trouble choosing his next destination.
As Totti, riquelme o little, players of his lineage, the German had dream seasons, made an art of the last pass and raised a thousand trophies. However, in the fan’s imagination there remains a bitter residue; a sorrow that derives from a potential of which, like an iceberg, only the beginning has been discovered.
Ozil was one of the key men in the resurgence of Real Madrid against the best Barça in history. He was fast, with elegant driving and a natural feint (ask Abidal, whom he besieged in so many classics), he won the league Mourinho and he died three times on the edge of the Champions League semifinals with that white team. In the season that he left (leaving a dent in part of the fans), Madrid won the tenth.
When he left Spain, Ozil was important in the last World Cup won by Germany and at Arsenal he became a legend. But the arrival of Arteta to the London bench and the drift of a football that ended with the figure of the midfielder condemned him to ostracism. A place where his peers are, and not so old, Coutinho e Isco. The attacking midfielder replaced the attacking midfielder some time ago, the one who appears but does not live, like Mesut and his predecessors, between the lines.