Özil more popular than Messi and Ronaldo: The most-visited player profiles in 2010
It is the summer of 2010 and Mesut Özil plays the best season of his career so far. For Werder Bremen, the then 21-year-old playmaker scored nine and assisted a further 16 goals and was voted the player of the Hinrunde (first half of the season) by his Bundesliga colleagues. And national team coach Joachim Löw acknowledged that Özil has an “ingenious level”, with him being “a godsend for German football”. Özil also made the headlines at the World Cup in South Africa, where he was a regular starter and helped the team to finish third. One month later, the Gelsenkirchen-born midfielder joined Real Madrid.
All those are reasons that Özil was the most popular player among Transfermarkt users in 2010. No player profile has been viewed more often this year – neither Lionel Messi’s nor the one of Özil’s future teammate Cristiano Ronaldo. In light of Transfermarkt’s 20th anniversary, we present the most-visited player profiles since 2010 on a daily basis.
Most-visited player profiles in 2010
Just like Özil, many others of the most-visited players in 2010 switched clubs this summer: Werder, for example, reinvested the €18 million for Özil in Marko Arnautovic and Wesley, who both made the top 20 at the end of the year, just like Shinji Kagawa did after he moved from Cerezo Osaka to Borussia Dortmund as a nobody and stood out in the 2010/11 Hinrunde on the way to winning the league title, before a broken foot sidelined him in spring.
2010 was also the year, in which superstar Raúl arrived in the Bundesliga at Schalke 04. Or in which, then Chelsea midfielder, Michael Ballack missed the World Cup after a vicious foul by Kevin-Prince Boateng (Portsmouth). In hindsight, possibly also a reason, why players like Özil, Thomas Müller and Sami Khedira stepped up in the national team in the absence of the former leader.
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- Date of birth/Age:
- Oct 15, 1988 (35)
- Nat.:
- Current club:
- Retired
- Contract until:
- -
- Position:
- Attacking Midfield
- Market Value:
- -
- Date of birth/Age:
- Jun 24, 1987 (36)
- Nat.:
- Current club:
- Inter Miami CF
- Contract until:
- Dec 31, 2025
- Position:
- Right Winger
- Market Value:
- €30.00m
- Date of birth/Age:
- Feb 5, 1985 (39)
- Nat.:
- Current club:
- Al-Nassr FC
- Contract until:
- Jun 30, 2025
- Position:
- Centre-Forward
- Market Value:
- €15.00m