![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/38049.jpg\" "\\"38049\\"")
<\/p>\nOne of Germany\u2019s high-profile ethnic Turkish footballers, Mesut \u00d6zil, has asked to sit out Friday\u2019s match against Turkey to avoid angry Turkish fans \u2013 but has been told he has to play.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI love Turkey as much as I do Germany,\u201d he told Turkish daily newspaper Radikal.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though we have already qualified, for me this will be the most difficult match of the competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the German Football Association (DFB) rejected his request to sit out the match, saying it could encourage bad habits, Radikal reported.<\/p>\n
German-born \u00d6zil is often held up as a brilliant example of integration, yet when he first played for Germany against Turkey last year in Berlin he was booed by Turkish supporters, one of whom held up a placard reading, \u201cWe could\u2019ve been cheering for you, \u00d6zil!\u201d<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old midfielder told Radikal on Wednesday that the booing last year had scuppered him, and that he had asked the DFB to sit out Friday\u2019s match at Istanbul\u2019s T\u00fcrk Telekom Arena.<\/p>\n
Although Germany has already qualified for the Euro 2012 finals, Turkey needs to do well in order to go through and \u00d6zil could face a sea of angry Turkish fans if things do not go their way.<\/p>\n
Most of the player\u2019s extended family still live in Turkey, so he explained to Radikal that he was aware of the prejudices many Turks still hold against him and that he would expect to be jeered at again.<\/p>\n
His father Mustafa also spoke with Radikal.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u00d6zil is no different from [German born, Turkish players] Nuri, Hamit or Mehmet, but circumstances took them to the Turkish team and him the German. I wish people would accept his decision,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Germany today there are Turkish politicians in the Bundestag and Turkish professors in the universities. We Turks came here 50 years ago as guest workers and brought skills to contribute to the country. My son is a part of this and Turkey should be proud of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet \u00d6zil sat out training on Wednesday, citing Achilles tendon pain, and has yet to train with the squad. Coach Joachim L\u00f6w has said a decision would be made about his fitness on Thursday; just 24 hours before the match.<\/p>\n
Undefeated so far, Guus Hiddink\u2019s team qualified following a 6 \u2013 2 victory against Austria, and will be heading to the finals in Poland and Ukraine next year. Riding on a wave of nine consecutive victories, Hiddink said \u201cI can see very few weaknesses [in the German team].\u201d<\/p>\n
However L\u00f6w admitted, “We have in fact a few question marks over our players,” as key strikers Mario Gomez and Miroslav Klose are suffering from injuries. Their potential absence from the field could benefit Turkey, whose ticket to the finals still hangs in the balance despite two home wins in their string of six undefeated matches.<\/p>\n
Turkey needs a better result against Germany than Belgium gets against Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n
Turkish Left-back Gokhan Gonul said, “We know the power of Germany; they come with an unbeaten record in the group. We know it will be difficult, but not impossible.”<\/p>\n
\u00d6zil told Radikal that he hoped, \u201cTurkey reaches the next round in the Euro 2012 competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Local\/AFP\/jcw<\/p>\n
via \u00d6zil wants to sit out Turkey football clash – The Local.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of Germany\u2019s high-profile ethnic Turkish footballers, Mesut \u00d6zil, has asked to sit out Friday\u2019s match against Turkey to avoid angry Turkish fans \u2013 but has been told he has to play. \u201cI love Turkey as much as I do Germany,\u201d he told Turkish daily newspaper Radikal. \u201cEven though we have already qualified, for me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":44833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3996],"tags":[5768,5609],"class_list":["post-44831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-euro-2012","tag-mesut-ozil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}