Mesut Özil announces retirement from international football | OneFootball

Mesut Özil has announced his retirement from international football.

The 29-year-old World Cup winner earned 92 caps for Germany, scoring 23 times in a nine-year career.

He made his international debut against Norway back in February 2009 and was an integral part of Joachim Löw’s side as they lifted the World Cup in 2014.

The Arsenal playmaker has recently come in for criticism in Germany after he was pictured with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan just weeks before the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Team manager Oliver Bierhoff and German FA (DFB) President Reinhard Grindel both publicly singled Özil out after the team’s shocking group stage exit.

Özil explained the picture of himself with Erdoğan in a lengthy statement on Sunday, in which he criticised the German media and the DFB’s handling of the situation, before going on to confirm he would be retiring from the national team.