{"id":590,"date":"2019-03-01T10:30:37","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T10:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsnewsforyou.com\/2019\/03\/01\/really-great-player-ozil-providing-the-inspiration-for-leverkusen-starlet-havertz\/"},"modified":"2019-03-01T10:30:37","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T10:30:37","slug":"really-great-player-ozil-providing-the-inspiration-for-leverkusen-starlet-havertz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=590","title":{"rendered":"'Really great player' Ozil providing the inspiration for Leverkusen starlet Havertz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doubting the ability of the Arsenal playmaker is considered “incomprehensible” by a man hoping to mirror the midfielder’s success with Germany <\/p>\n

Talented Bayer Leverkusen teenager Kai Havertz has professed admiration\u00a0for Mesut Ozil as he targets a role in Germany’s post-World Cup rebuild.<\/p>\n

Ozil’s hotly debated retirement in the aftermath of the national team’s failure in Russia has left Joachim Low searching for a new playmaker.<\/p>\n

Attacking midfielder Havertz, who in April became the youngest player in Bundesliga history to reach\u00a050 appearances,\u00a0has been mentioned as a possible successor, having already represented Germany at multiple youth levels.<\/p>\n

Article continues below<\/span> <\/p>\n

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While hesitant to discuss the controversy behind Ozil’s exit – which came amid accusations of mistreatment from the German Football Federation – Havertz cited the Arsenal star as a role model.<\/p>\n

“I would like to evaluate this exclusively from a sporting point of view,” the 19-year-old told German website Spox<\/em>. “To doubt his footballing qualities is incomprehensible to me.<\/p>\n

“He has always been a player whom I love to watch and whose path I follow. Mesut Ozil is a really great player, who has done a lot for the national team and also his clubs.”<\/p>\n

The rapid international emergence of Leverkusen team-mate Julian Brandt is likewise serving as inspiration for\u00a0Havertz in his\u00a0aim of achieving selection for Euro 2020.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Brandt, 22, won his first senior cap two years after his professional debut and went on to feature for Germany at the World Cup.<\/p>\n

“I can take take a bit of an\u00a0example [from Brandt], even if I would rather call him a friend and not a role model,” said Havertz.<\/p>\n

“It’s a shame we had to go home so early [from Russia], but maybe this tournament has also opened the doors for other players to slip into the national team due to Julian’s achievements.<\/p>\n

“Of\u00a0course I have it in mind and I want to do more at some point after seeing friends play at a World Cup.”<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doubting the ability of the Arsenal playmaker is considered “incomprehensible” by a man hoping to mirror the midfielder’s success with Germany Talented Bayer Leverkusen teenager Kai Havertz has professed admiration\u00a0for Mesut Ozil as he targets a role in Germany’s post-World Cup rebuild. Ozil’s hotly debated retirement in the aftermath of the national team’s failure in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}