Sanogo is big and physical but doesn't have the technical ability (looks rather clumsy with ball at his feet). Never really thought he would pan out. Maybe go on YouTube and try to find a video of copying from dvr? I've never tried to do that.
You are right, you would probably get 5 morons on the other end. If anyone wants to know how, PM me. It's not that difficult.
Henry Winter is a dunce but this might be my favorite Mesut article http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/football/article4646065.ece Spoiler ‘Zidane never did tricks for the sake of it, he just wanted to play a clever game. That’s what I’ve tried to do at Arsenal’ Print Share via Facebook Twitter Google+ Özil prepares for City’s visit tonight confident that Arsenal can seize hold of the title raceGraham Hughes/The Times Henry Winter Chief Football Writer Last updated at 12:01AM, December 21 2015 All the humility that Mesut Özil shows in putting the team first, focusing on selfless assists rather than the glory of scoring goals himself, was nurtured by strong, principled parents. All the balance and beauty that defines Arsenal’s graceful playmaker was developed on a hard, pebble-strewn surface in Gelsenkirchen. The shaping of Özil, a World Cup-winner and one of the most-acclaimed players of the Barclays Premier League season, started in the old coal-mining region of the Ruhr. An hour in Özil’s enlightening company at London Colney on Saturday reveals a footballer with principles, who still plays the game and lives his life to the values demanded by his parents, who had little money but plenty of love and advice for their four children. “My parents gave me the right principles, so I didn’t get carried away,’’ Özil says. “They always told me to be down to earth, that I was not special. They told me always to be nice to people. They said: ‘You maybe have the ability to be a football star but it doesn’t make you better than your brother and sisters. Respect each other. Be together’. That’s how I grew up. It’s a cultural thing.” He attends a Mosque in London and prays daily. “I’m a religious person,” he says. “I grew up like that with my family. For me it is important that I pray. I pray on the pitch. I’m not doing this to show people I am Muslim, or that I’m a believer, I do it for myself. It’s about my faith. At Arsenal, all the team give me respect. They respect my religion. I respect their religions. “There are some similarities with Berlin but there’s no place as multicultural in the world as London.” He goes into town, appreciating the capital’s many cultural and culinary charms. “Footballers are still humans — we have to enjoy life.” he says. “People are asking me for autographs or pictures, but it’s a part of my life I’m used to. I try to live my life as I want to. I go to the cinema, restaurants, with friends, just leading a normal life.” A normal life. His upbringing forged a strong social conscience manifested in his foundation. Last year, Özil started inviting disabled children to Arsenal games. He invited children with cancer to his private box at the Emirates Stadium. During the World Cup in Brazil, Özil funded German doctors to go into villages in the Amazon and operate on children with cleft palates. They started with 11 operations. After the final at the Maracana, Özil told the doctors: “Let’s do more.” So another 23 children had their lives transformed. Özil’s doctors are now in Africa. “I want to help people in need but I don’t want people to know I’m doing it,” he says. “Usually I don’t like talking about it. I come from a background where you don’t show off the good things you do. It’s modesty. My aim is helping kids. Kids are the future. I love children. I’m thinking of my own childhood. I know where I’m from. If I wanted something, I couldn’t get it. Life wasn’t easy. Things I didn’t have in the past I try to give to kids. I know how it feels not to have things. We were poor but we had enough food to eat. It was a big family, four kids, and it was not like you could just go and buy something. But we had the essentials, the food.” Özil and the rest of Arsène Wenger’s squad are using today’s match against Manchester City to raise funds for the Arsenal Foundation. Each player donates a day’s wages and fans are being encouraged to go on the club’s website to give too; £220,000 was generated last season, the money supporting UK-based charities such as Bob Wilson’s Willow Foundation and global organisations such as Save The Children, building pitches in refugee camps in Iraq. Özil takes an interest in all the causes, and a discussion about pitches takes him back to his childhood. It was on the unpromising pitch near his Gelsenkirchen home that Özil learnt how to beat opponents, how to hone techniques learnt from watching Zinédine Zidane on television, and develop the gifts and mentality that have made him a world champion. “I used to play eight to nine hours of football a day,” he says. “I used to go to school and finish at 1.30, then quickly go outside to the pitch where I grew up with all my friends until 5.30, training with the local team. After training normally we came back and played more on the pitch.” He would practise Zidane’s techniques and turns. “Zidane was one of my idols, a player I looked up to and learnt from and I wanted to do the same as him,” he says. “When he did tricks, I wanted to do the same. I always admired Zidane. He was a very down-to-earth person. I watched how he did his passes. He didn’t do tricks for the sake of it. He never wanted to show off. He just played a clever game. He’s the player who decides games. I watched his technique and tried to do that in my game, and a lot of times it worked. “I never knew you could make money from football when I was younger. People always said, ‘you are super-talented’ when I was 15 or 16 but I never realised it could be a career. I just loved playing. After 16, I realised for the first time after finishing school that I could even make money from my passion. Wow.” He nods appreciatively at the mention of his reputation as an honest player. “It makes me happy to hear that. That’s the way I am,” he says. “I grew up like that. I play always honestly. I won’t change. I don’t dive. I can’t dive. I just can’t do that. I grew up playing on that hard surface, and I couldn’t dive on it as I’d hurt my legs. There were stones on it. “That’s why we never tried to dive, so we never learnt diving. We didn’t have the pitch for diving. Even on the grass pitch here, I try not to fall down.” He stays on his feet and remains sanguine. “In the youth teams in Germany I was always tackled hard but I never, ever got angry,” he says. “Playing in that No 10 position, I was used to those tackles. I knew the tackles would happen. It is better for me to beat the tackler with my creative abilities, not showing aggression or being angry against them. That’s a waste of time. I focus on the game.” Özil’s selfless traits are reflected in 13 Premier League assists, bringing Thierry Henry’s record of 20 into range. “I’m not thinking that I have to go past Henry’s record,” he says. “I’ve heard about the record but my aim is Arsenal’s success. It’s lovely to break records, and if it happens it will be nice, but it’s not the most important thing. The team is.” Such an approach is why Özil squared the ball to Aaron Ramsey at Villa Park rather than shooting. “It was on my right foot. So it’s 50-50 if I score,” he says. “I saw he was in a better position than me, so he could score 100 per cent. It is more important to give the ball to the player in the better position than to shoot myself and risk missing. “It would make the game easier for us if I played the ball to him, we go 2-0 in front and we win the game. Both assists and goals give me pleasure — because both end up with a goal for the team. I’m a creative player and it makes me equally proud and happy to assist as well as score. Of course it makes me happy if the fans take pleasure from watching me but I play for the team, not for myself.” To get into the position to pass to Ramsey, Özil flew upfield. He is known as one of the quickest at Arsenal over distance. “I run a lot and if I see a path where I can really counterattack, I go quickly and read the game,” he says. “This season we mix [play] better than last season, we play more directly in front. We take more risk, go faster and go more direct. Keeping the ball is good but if it is better for us to attack space we can play more direct.” He left the field early at Villa Park, walking down the tunnel as Villa fans gesticulated at him. “They made this [obscene] sign at me,” he says. “They were losing, 2-0 down, in a difficult position with their team, so I just smiled at them and blew them a kiss. Some of them just got more aggressive. Some of them started laughing.” Özil’s demeanour reflected Arsenal’s mood. “We are a more confident team this season,” he says. “I can feel as a player on the pitch the team is more confident when we play. We dominate the other team. The team believes in itself more this season. It’s not just started now. It’s been going for the whole year. We played very good football in the second half of last season. The players believe we can be successful this season. “I believe we will take the three points from City. We want to win because it’s at our home and we want to be successful. We are more hungry this season. Look at the Champions League. You could see us in Athens against Olympiacos [on December 9]: we just needed two goals but we went for the third one. We showed more confidence, more hunger.” Arsenal will need all those qualities and more in the next round of the Champions League. “Barcelona are the hardest team in the world to play against,” he says. “Barcelona are the best team at the moment in the world. We know that. But as a player I look forward to encounters like this. For me it is important to have these big games, it’s nice to play against the best teams, to compete with them is a big opportunity for us. “We respect Barcelona but they will respect us too. We beat Bayern Munich at home. We are not afraid of Barcelona. We just need to play our game and we can beat them. There is no fear. In football everything’s possible. It is a tough match but I don’t think our defenders were afraid after the draw. It’s a big opportunity for them to prove themselves against the best attack in the world, players like Suárez, Messi, Neymar. It will be an exciting game, with the possibility of lots of goals, but it’s not like we are afraid. “Barcelona are a big team like any other big team but it is nothing special for me because I played for Real Madrid [from 2010 to 2013]. It’s not like a Clasico for me as in the past. I play for Arsenal.” And he is on a mission. “If you look at history, it’s sad that Arsenal have not so far won the Champions League,” he says. “Arsenal have always had super players. Arsenal have always played nice, attacking football. I hope we can win the Champions League title in the future and thank the fans for supporting Arsenal for such a long time. They’ve been waiting for this moment.” The arrival of a former Champions League winner, Petr Cech, has fostered farther belief. “Petr Cech is a big plus for us,” he says. “We are happy we have Petr Cech because he has a lot of experience. If the other team have a chance, he blocks it. We know he will make the save and that makes us calm and more confident. I feel better and more confident when I have a keeper. He can control the game from the back. He is very experienced but we have other goalkeepers who are very good.” Talk turns to Cech’s old manager, José Mourinho, newly dismissed by Chelsea. Özil knows Mourinho well from their Real days. “I’m surprised by what happened with José,” he says. “He’s a great manager. I believe that any club he goes to now he will be successful again. I know how special he is as a manager. He is a manager who always supports his team and always protects his team. He’s getting the best out of any player. I wish him all the best for the future, and also that he’s healthy and fine.” Özil left Real and chose Arsenal primarily for one reason. “Arsène Wenger was definitely the main reason I signed here,” he says. “He’s a great football man. He always qualifies for the Champions League knockouts as a team. We are really happy we have such a great manager. He knows how to prepare a team and the players. He’s very experienced. I came here to develop further under Wenger, to learn more from such a great manager.” Wenger regularly lauds his No 11, saying recently that “if you love to watch football, you love to watch Özil”. The player was once questioned in his German homeland and initially in England. “Because of my performances they stopped talking,” he says. “I’ve experienced so much already in my career, positive or negative, that when the media write in a negative or a positive way it didn’t bother me. It was important to me to never lose my happiness of playing football and I’ve never lost that. That keeps me going.” He believes that Germany can add the European Championship trophy to their World Cup. “Definitely,” he replies in English, having spoken for much of the interview in German. “We can do it because we have world-class players. We believe. We can win the Euros.” So why are Germans so good at penalties? “Because we are mentally strong,” he says. “I was 20-21 when I took my first penalty. We didn’t practise them at school. German guys go, ‘If I miss, I miss.’ We are not scared to miss. We go for it. Go and shoot. If it’s a goal, goal. If it’s not, it’s not.” Could he help his hosts? “I won’t teach the English how to take penalties!” he laughs. “After the Euros, maybe.”
Get fucking in there! Crazy Joel's work rate the impetus for that goal. I'm 0 fer today, I'll allow it.
If there's a complaint in the 2nd half, it's the missed chances from Ramsey and Joel. Of course City would create chances and the Yaya goal was insane. Anyways, great win. I'm going on a 72 hour bender up till christmas.
#trophy Jonathan Northcroft @JNorthcroft 1m1 minute ago Some year for Arsenal Pts in 2015 AFC 78 MC 68 Leic 66 MU 63 THFC 62 CP 61 CFC 59 LFC 58 Stoke 52 EFC 49 Soton 48 WBA 47 Swan 42 WH 41
No Coq and no Alexis. United, Chelsea Livid in shambles. Beat the two closest teams in the table to our record. Ours to lose, let's get two bodies in here during the window and win the fuckin league.
He will miss the easy ones like today and then pull some goal of the year out next match. So frustrating.
it was and up and down day for him. but him chasing his own bad passes 20 yards to get caught out of position when city just pass it right by him has got to stop. fine you lost a ball now track back and let the 3 attacking players chase it because they are closer anyway.
http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/foo...song-for-the-arsenal-foundation-a3142381.html SIAP just saw this
Alexis out 3 more weeks, 3 PL and a FA Cup game. Ox is gonna get a couple starts in there, time for him to show up. Gonna need Chambers, Gabriel, and Gibbs to step up during the holidays as well.
Wouldn't have been a big Arsenal win without Giroud extending our already more than long enough squeaky bum time.
Our Mesut http://arsenalist.com/f/2015-16/arsenal-vs-man-city/mesut-ozil-passing-genius-touchofozil.html (Euros always find these random guilty pleasure songs to accompany these tributes)
Did xmas a day early & scored Arsenal pajamas, slippers, sweater & t-shirt from the wife & step-kids... So much when worn all together
Could watch that all day, on mute. Seriously though, I don't get how a guy like that can miss the net so much. His touch is fucking magical.
He's been a much better finisher this year. He just needs to act like he's passing it into the net every time.
Merry Christmas, Ace Boogie I hope Easton, PA finest Mennonite harlots fill all your desires http://arsenalist.com/f/2015-16/oth...nst-spurs-with-martin-tyler-commentating.html
thats the opposite of what he needs to do, he sucks as a scorer because he tries to pass it into spots like a fgt
Mr. Weedlord, that's our God you are talking about. Also, in the summer, is there any reason Deutschland should shunt him to the left again? No way there is a better 10 in the world at this point no? I mean, he's making Theo and Giroud look WC.