Player Focus: Mustafi No Longer Germany's Mr Unknown

When Joachim Löw announced his Germany squad to play Chile in Stuttgart on Wednesday, many of the journalists ran their fingers down the list, got to the name of Sampdoria’s Shkodran Mustafi and asked: “Who?” Theirs was a common reaction across Germany. When Kicker ran a piece in pre-season on Germans playing outside of the Bundesliga, Mustafi didn’t feature in it. He was, as one paper put it in response to his call-up, Herr Unbekannt: Mr Unknown.

Mustafi, however, wasn’t a stranger to everyone. At least not to various “industry insiders,” according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung. And that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Few countries have so meticulously sourced and developed talent since the beginning of the century, which of course began with Germany radically reforming its youth system following their humiliation at Euro 2000.

The son of Albanian immigrants, Mustafi was born in Bad Hersfeld. He came to the attention of Hamburg as a 13-year-old playing up front for SV Rotenburg. On his induction into their academy, a thorough appraisal of his attributes was carried out and Mustafi changed position. He became a centre-back instead and would represent Germany there at almost every youth level.

Mustafi played alongside Borussia Mönchengladbach’s Barcelona-bound goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen and Bayern Munich’s Mario Götze in an Under-17 team that won the European Championship in 2009. Götze’s club at the time, Borussia Dortmund, were said to be interested in signing the promising defender who Martin Jol had invited to train with the first team at Hamburg on a number of occasions. Rumour has it Jürgen Klopp even picked up the phone and spoke to Mustafi, “... It’s true,” the player revealed to Genoa’s local paper Il Secolo XIX last week.

And yet Mustafi turned him down. He said ‘no’ to a coach who was told by Zlatan Ibrahimovic no less at the Ballon d’Or ceremony that he’d “come [to Dortmund] for free” if it meant he got the opportunity to play under him. Mustafi said ‘yes’ to David Moyes instead. That’s right. “At the time, I preferred to go to Everton, English football attracted me more.” It was bold of him, an indication of his character. He’d left home once [for Hamburg] and wasn’t afraid to uproot himself again to settle in a new country with a different culture and style of football. But it didn’t work out.

In two and a half years on Merseyside, Mustafi made just one appearance and that was as a substitute for Tony Hibbert in a Europa League group stage match against BATE Borisov. It was a frustrating experience, but Mustafi learned from it. As we’ll see, he credits Everton and Moyes to a certain extent with making him the player he is today.

On leaving Goodison, Mustafi joined Sampdoria who picked him up for free. Relegated to Serie B, their recruitment strategy as coordinated by director of sport Pasquale Sensibile was based around identifying some of the best young talent in Europe and bringing it to Marassi. Their chief scout at the time, Riccardo Pecini, now at Monaco, delivered. He signed Pedro Obiang, Mauro Icardi and Mustafi. It was an easy sales pitch. Come here and you’ll not only get to live on one of Italy’s most beautiful stretches of coastline, but you’ll get to play too. Except Mustafi didn’t at first, much to his irritation.

“Upon reflection I see that it was right,” he told La Repubblica. “I couldn’t understand a word of Italian. I didn’t know how to move.” The adaptation period lasted beyond the end of the season when Samp were promoted back to the top flight. No sooner had he forced himself into the first team under Ciro Ferrara, though, than the coach was fired. His replacement, Delio Rossi used him here and there, but for the most part kept him on the bench. Things then began to change.

From late September this season, Mustafi began to get more and more game-time. He impressed in a 1-0 defeat to Milan at San Siro (7.9 rating), then was Man of the Match in a draw with Torino (7.89 rating) and a win against Atalanta, when he scored the only goal of the game, his first for Samp, a display for which he received a 9.27 WhoScored rating.

At 7.38, his average is the highest at the club this season. Mustafi puts that consistency of performance down to Rossi’s successor Sinisa Mihajlovic recognising his strengths and playing to them. “Since he came in, us defenders are playing the ball more. And I’m happy because it’s also what they ask me to do [for Germany] at Under-21 level,” Mustafi said. “In reality I already did it in Hamburg’s youth system because it’s part of the German school. Then I went to England and everything changed. There, a lot of teams play kick and run. Like Everton, where I moved. Now I’ve gone back [to my original game].”

That’s not necessarily a criticism. Mustafi added parts to his game in England that weren’t there before. He makes every high ball his own. “That’s credit to my experience at Everton,” he said. “It’s like that in English football. If you aren’t reactive to balls in the air, opposing strikers make a complete arse out of you.”

Against Catania this season, he seemed to win header after header, prompting the crowd to cry ‘Olé’ after each one. Of all centre-backs in Serie A only Stefan Savic and Cristian Zapata have won more aerial duels per game than Mustafi [3.5]. His success rate stands at 68.4%. Watching John Terry must have rubbed off on him too, for only Gonzalo Rodriguez and Mikael Antonsson have made more last man tackles [3] than the 21-year old this season.

For his age, he’s a very well-rounded defender, with only three centre-backs making more interceptions (65) this season. If he learned to step up and play out in Germany, and then to be aggressive and uncompromising in England, in Italy he has worked on his positioning and tactical discipline. “They’re things you only learn from experience. For instance, when is it the right time to make a tactical foul? Should you anticipate the play or stay with your man? Am I in the right position to defend a long ball?”

Mature beyond his years, the absence of captain and centre-back partner Daniele Gastaldello didn’t faze him at all against Milan 10 days ago. Samp lost [again] but he came out of it rather well. Captain of Germany’s Under-20 side and deputy at Under-21 level, Mustafi is a leader and a vocal one at that. “If there’s something to say, I’ll say it whether it’s to a fellow youngster or someone more experienced than me.”

You can understand why Löw got his assistant Hansi Flick to give Mustafi a call, even if his inclusion in Germany’s senior squad, together with those he made to three other debutantes - Hamburg’s Pierre-Michel Lasogga, Freiburg’s Matthias Ginter and Augsburg’s Andre Hahn - was perhaps intentioned to send a message out to other young Germans that the door is still open between now and the World Cup. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Serie A has established a reputation in recent years as a springboard for young foreign centre-backs. It’s enough to think of Simon Kjaer at Palermo in 2008 and Marquinhos at Roma last term. Though the former experienced a revival at Lille earlier on this season, it’s fair to say he has never lived up to the justifiable hype that gathered around him in Sicily. As for the latter, it’s still a little early to tell if he has been a success at Paris Saint-Germain or not.

Those examples remind us to be cautious about Mustafi and about bashing Moyes, like the Daily Mail did last week, for allowing him to leave Everton, all of which was a touch unfair. I mean, to gloss over the extenuating circumstances relating to each case of which I’m aware, it’s not like Sir Alex Ferguson ever let players like Giuseppe Rossi, Gerard Pique and Paul Pogba leave Manchester United or anything, is it? So let’s wait and see if Mustafi develops into a top class defender. For now, though, as the trebling of his value demonstrates, he is a player of real promise and no longer Herr Unbekannt: Mr Unknown.

Is Mustafi deserving of a place in Germany's World Cup squad? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below