Did Werder Bremen Sell Out By Selling Mesut Ozil To Madrid?

These are the thoughts of some people, for a particularly vociferous reflection see here.

Now, there are some interesting arguments here regarding Ozil and his transfer to Real, but the article overlooks or underplays some elements which I believe to be key.

Werder Bremen are not in debt, this is true, but they do not have the same fabulous financial resources as other clubs—especially in the Champions League—and 15 or so million is a considerable amount of money.

Add to this the fact that losing Ozil on a free would be fairly catastrophic unless he had singlehandedly guided Bremen deep into the Champions League, something that their sometimes porous defence would have made difficult, and the deal begins to make sense.

The point made about Bremen being "too small" for a big player is an unfair one to use. Ozil was not going to sign a new contract so making a profit from him is an advantage to Bremen (remember he only cost Bremen around 4 million Euros). Football is unfortunately a business and as such the correct business decision was made.

As football fans, I confess we do not always laud good business for footballing sacrifices, but in this case the case for Ozil's replacement is somewhat heartening for those fans, such as myself, who enjoy Bremen's gung-ho attacking style.

The money received for Ozil does not need to go on his replacement. Bremen's fantastic youth system has been churning out extremely promising players. With the admittedly great advantage of hindsight over the article's writer, we can see that Aaron Hunt is shaping up to be a rather talented No. 10 himself, if his performances against Sampdoria are anything to go by.

Then there is Marko Marin. Though a tricky winger by choice he is capable of playing a striking role, and also in the hole behind the strikers. He still has a lot of work to do to become the finished product, but with Ozil's departure he might see more playing time and this can only accelerate his advancement. 

Phillip Bargfrede is another promising and versatile midfielder who is receiving more and more game time, and Felix Kroos, brother of Toni Kroos, should not be discounted as he is shaping up to follow in his brother's footsteps.

If, as the Sampdoria game indicated, Bremen switch from 4-2-3-1 to a 4-1-2-1-2 diamond formation, it also follows that both Claude Pizzaro and Hugo Almedia will play alongside each other more regularly, and as they have an excellent partnership which only saw limited time in recent seasons this can only be good for Werder's goal output.

To conclude, I utterly reject that Werder Bremen committed footballing suicide with the sale of Ozil. From a business perspective, it was absolutely the right thing to do. From a purely footballing perspective, we can conclude that the famous German youth system graduates will grasp this chance with both hands and make Oezil's shirt number and position their own.

They are admittedly large shoes to fill, but the sheer amount of promising young German attackers at Bremen make his eventual replacement all but a certainty.