Germany in crisis as Mesut Özil’s ‘Bling-bling gang’ take on Bavarians

In October 2010, Angela Merkel paid an unscheduled visit to the Germany dressing-room after their 3-0 home win over Turkey. The chancellor was photographed shaking hands with Mesut Özil, the team’s German-Turkish midfielder, and there was a thunderclap of controversy.

The Deutscher Fussball Bund’s then president, Theo Zwanziger, expressed “irritations”, adding: “The events after the game were certainly not ideal.” With the issue of social integration to the fore, Merkel was accused of exploiting the Nationalmannschaft – and Özil – for political gain. She was forced to clear the air with Zwanziger.

Last month, the Turkey president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, paid a visit to London and he was photographed with Özil and another Germany midfielder with Turkish origins, Ilkay Gündogan. They presented him with signed shirts, with the one Gündogan gave bearing the message: “To my president, with my respects.”

There was uproar in Germany and, before the team’s crucial World Cup tie against Sweden on Saturday evening, it is a storm that continues to rumble. Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, had said the stunt “threw up questions and invited misunderstandings” and those questions once again hit the nerve that is the debate over dual citizenship and national identity in Germany.

To many Germans, Erdogan is not the sort of person with whom to associate. His critics have branded him a dictator who has failed to protect women’s and human rights, curbed freedom of speech and tried to check Turkey’s secular identity. Journalists who write against him have been jailed.

“Football and the DFB stands for values that Mr Erdogan does not sufficiently represent,” the governing body’s president, Reinhard Grindel, said. He believed it was “not a good thing” for Özil and Gündogan to have posed with him.

Erdogan has called a general election that will take place on Sunday and the photograph with Özil and Gündogan was a PR coup. About 1.2 million people in Germany with Turkish backgrounds are eligible to vote. Erdogan is banned from campaigning on German soil.

Poor Özil. The doleful maestro never bargained on being a political pawn but where there is blame, there tends to be a claim on him. If France’s Paul Pogba is the most criticised player in world football, as he has suggested, then Özil must be a close second. Poor Gündogan, too. The invitation from Erdogan must have been a hard one for either of them to side step and it is possible to see them as being damned if they did, damned if they did not.

Özil has stayed characteristically silent on the matter but Gündogan has said he met Erdogan purely out of politeness and respect. He made the point he “honours German values 100%”. But it has not stopped some people from feeling he and Özil made a massive mistake; that they underestimated the consequences of their actions.

Unsurprisingly, the right-wing nationalist party, Alternative für Deutschland, has piled in, saying Özil and Gündogan should be removed from the squad. It made its latest call on Tuesday after Germany had lost their opening Group F tie to Mexico 48 hours previously.

Joachim Löw’s team did not lose to Mexico because of the continuing fallout from the Erdogan affair. The defending champions lost because they were one-paced and ridiculously open at the back. Where Mexico were dynamic and tactically switched-on, there was an end-of-cycle feel to the German performance. Yet it does offer an illustration of the mood that has come to surround the camp, which is one of fractiousness, distrust and doom-mongering.

Löw and Germany are in crisis. It has gripped with indecent haste and invited scrutiny of the squad, which has been unforgiving. According to Sport Bild, there are factions within it and they have dubbed one of them the “Bling-bling gang” which comprises Özil, Sami Khedira, Jérôme Boateng and Julian Draxler. The other one is the Bavarian group of Manuel Neuer, Mats Hummels, Thomas Müller and Toni Kroos.

According to reports, the Bling-blingers felt the Bavarians could have done more to lobby Löw over the inclusion of Leroy Sané, who was surprisingly omitted from the squad. Löw’s reason was mainly tactical; Sané would have been behind Draxler and Marco Reus in the pecking order and might have played for only 20 minutes here or there.

But Löw also asked himself whether Sané would have been prepared to sacrifice himself for the squad; if he could have been a potential disruption. On one level, Löw’s decision to overlook Sané did not speak for his conviction in man-management terms.

Loyalty is a principal theme as Löw searches for the solutions against Sweden. He has developed a winning formula, it has served him well and he made it plain that although there would be tweaks to the lineup he was not about to throw everything into the bin after one damaging defeat.

Löw reported that Hummels had “dislodged a vertebrae” in his neck, so Niklas Süle is set to play in central defence, while Jonas Hector is expected to replace Marvin Plattenhardt at left-back. Mario Gomez is in line to play instead of Timo Werner up front, given his greater physicality. Sweden are one of the tallest teams at the World Cup.

What of the midfield, which was the major problem area against Mexico? Özil, Khedira and Müller were particularly poor and their places are under threat. Reus is expected to come in but it could be for Draxler on the left rather than Özil as the No 10. Gündogan is pushing Khedira for his place.

It was a cocksure performance from Löw at the pre-match press conference and he sounded almost affronted when he was asked whether his confidence in his leading players had been shaken.

“Please,” he said. “Of course not. This deep trust in players will not be destroyed by a single match. We shouldn’t cast doubt on everything. As far as our playing style is concerned, nothing changes. The small details might change, like quicker defensive transitions and getting attackers in behind Sweden’s defence, but nothing basic.”

Müller had been asked on Wednesday about the cliques and he admitted they had not enjoyed “great chemistry” at Euro 2012, when Germany lost to Italy in the semi-finals. But he insisted there was no issue here.

Löw knows it is time for Germany to show the resilience for which they are famed against opponents who will sit deep and compress the space. The longer Germany remain scoreless, the more anxious it could become. “We need to get back to being prepared to walk that extra mile,” Müller said. “The heat is on.“