It could only have been his day! Mesut Özil hammered home early on, making it 1-0 for Werder and setting the scene for a flood of first half goals. The visitors played their part...
It could only have been his day! Mesut Özil hammered home early on, making it 1-0 for Werder and setting the scene for a flood of first half goals. The visitors played their part...
It could only have been his day! Mesut Özil hammered home early on, making it 1-0 for Werder and setting the scene for a flood of first half goals. The visitors played their part bravely and attackingly, which played right into Werder’s hands. Everything went according to plan for the 19 year old but then a 4-1 lead was stunningly turned into a 4-4, the almost 40,000 fans head’s dropped as a certain three points looked to have flittered away and Mesut Özil was feeling pain in his knee. How much longer could the winger hold out? “I was tired and the pain in my knee kept worsening, but we couldn’t make any more substitutions,” said the midfielder – who played on bravely.
Hoffenheim were now piling the pressure on. The Green-Whites looked to be out of ideas, they were arguing with the referee and appeared to have completely blown a comfortable 4-1 lead. Suddenly a ray of hope, and the game took another twist: “Juri put through a super pass, I took on the ball and simply let fly.” 5-4! The Green-Whites had their noses in front again and three points were again in touching distance! Mesut Özil suddenly felt no more pain in his knee as he ran away in celebration – a celebration which seemed to infect the whole stadium: “I’m just happy! At the moment everything is working out for me. It was a crazy game and the three points were so important.”
The match was also an extremely important one in the still very young career of the midfielder, who shot his way into the hearts of the Werder fans with his stunning goal against Bayern Munich last weekend and is well on his way to claiming a regular place in the Green-White’s starting eleven: “It was unbelievable the way the fans continued to get behind us today, despite the fact that we’d thrown away such a good lead. That gave us the extra push we needed,” admitted Özil after the game as he described the fabulous atmosphere in the Weser Stadium, which could have compared to the atmosphere on some of the best Champions League nights in Bremen.
