It’s the summer of 2008. A young German boy by the name Mesut Özil has been playing pretty well for his club Schalke 04, and now there are quite a few clubs looking to put in a bid for the youngster.
Oddly enough, one of those clubs was not the big German club Bayer Leverkusen. According to Leverkusen’s board, Özil was looking like a bit of a troublemaker, already have been arguing with his manager and staff. Instead, they thought it was better to wait, surely his 5,5 million pricetag could not raise by that much until next summer? Well, looking back at the summer of 2008 there are probably one or two people associated with Bayer who feel some sort of regret, now that they have missed out on one of Germany’s biggest talents of the 2000’s.
Becuase when Leverkusen didn’t accept when they were offered Özil for 5,5 million, Werder Bremen instead capitalized on what they saw as a great opportunity. And, well, Bremen later went on to sell Özil for a fee of 16 million euros to Spanish giants Real Madrid.
And even though Özil is no longer a part of the Galacticos, I think Florentino Perez & Co are pretty happy with making a profit of 44 million, selling the German playmaker to London club Arsenal for a hefty fee of 50 million.
Written by Eric Cagenius
