If there’s one thing we don’t associate with central defenders, it’s eye-catching pieces of skill.
But most central defender don’t play and train with Mesut Özil at both club and international level.
Shkodran Mustafi has only been at Arsenal for a matter of months, but his Germany colleague’s influence is already beginning to rub off on him.
The former Valencia defender has been getting ready for Die Mannschaft‘s friendly with Italy at the San Siro, and he posted a video to Instagram of a move straight out of the Özil playbook.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BM1Xe3Zj16o/?hl=en
Mustafi, who scored his first Germany goal during Euro 2016, was left on the bench for the 8-0 World Cup qualifying win in San Marino, a game described by teammate Thomas Müller as ‘pointless’.
Müller’s comments were met with a brilliantly detailed 10-point rebuttal from Alan Gasperoni, the Sammarinese press officer, who mentioned the value of Serge Gnabry’s hat-trick and that ‘It made some Sanmarinese people a little happy to remember that we have a real national team’.
Germany are top of their World Cup qualifying group with maximum points from 12 games, having scored 16 goals and conceded none. Maybe the friendly will give coach Jogi Löw a chance to try out new things. Mustafi at number 10, anyone?
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