In this series, BFW looks back at all the members of the 2014 World Cup-winning Germany men’s national team — players and coaches — reflecting on their performance back then and checking in on where they are today. Today we have the curious case of the vanishing playmaker: Mesut Özil.
One of the smoothest and most effortlessly dazzling footballers to grace the pitch in his day, Özil’s international career reached its zenith in 2014. And he’s been through a lot since then.
Mesut Özil’s role in 2014
It wasn’t the same explosive
entrance onto the world stage that the mercurial attacker experienced in 2010, but Özil did start every match, often on the left side of attacking midfield after Marco Reus’s injury. He collected one goal and one assist, including the game-sealer against a tough Algeria side that was threatening to take Germany to the brink in the Round of 16.
Özil also joined in on the fun in Germany’s 7-1 win over Brazil, providing an assist to Sami Khedira as the pair passed back and forth to one another in the Brazilian box. The game did not end entirely happily for him, though, as he wound up on the receiving end of Bastian Schweinsteiger shouting at him after a missed shot on a dangerous-looking Germany counter. That would have been 8-0. But the one time Germany’s unselfish playmaker did not square it to a teammate…barely a minute later, Brazil scored.
Overall, Özil was a chance-creating maestro — as he was four years later in 2018, but with the hardware to back it up. However, in 2014 he was one part of a smooth-running German machine, and arguably not one of its critical or standout components in the tournament.
What is Mesut Özil doing now?
Poorly Explained Bundesliga does a great job of summarizing Özil’s peculiar recent path on YouTube. The formerly slim midfielder has hit the gym and bulked up. Off the field, he has become increasingly political, doubling down on support for apparent far-right symbols and joining Türkiye president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s party in 2025.
The former Werder Bremen, Arsenal and Real Madrid star has a long and complicated history of being caught up in political narratives and backlashes. Germany’s far-right AfD party once lashed out against him following a pilgrimage to Mecca. When he resigned from the Germany national team in the wake of the 2018 World Cup, he penned a statement decrying his treatment in the public eye — as ‘a German when we win, an immigrant when we lose’. In 2019, he drew attention to the situation of the Uyghur minority in China, accusing the government of persecution — a stance he has since stated cost him in his career at Arsenal.
On the field, Özil’s career has veered every which way since 2014. In 2015/16, he tied the Premier League assists record and nearly won the league — but for Leicester City’s charmed finish and a late-season collapse from the Gunners. A series of fallouts with successive managers saw him frozen out of the club completely by his former club teammate Mikel Arteta in 2020, not immediately after Arteta’s appointment as Arsenal coach but after the European restart following the early height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He was left unregistered the following season, effectively ending his Arsenal career. He stayed, tweeting sardonically during Arsenal matches, until finally finding a move to Türkiye during the winter.
Eventually he made his way to Fenerbahçe…but was also frozen out there in his second season. Özil signed with İstanbul Başakşehir for one year before retiring in 2023, having made just four league appearances in his final professional season.
More recently, he spoke at a Malaysia-Türkiye Leadership Summit in April of 2026 during which he ‘encouraged Malaysia to strengthen investment in youth academies and grassroots development’, according to Malay Mail.
Join the conversation!
Sign up for a user account and get:
- New, improved notifications system!
- Fewer ads
- Create community posts
- Comment on articles, community posts
- Rec comments, community posts
