Mesut Ozil explains exactly what happened to him and Sead Kolasinac in car jacking

Mesut Ozil and Sead Kolasinac missed the whole of August after they were car jacked in London

Posted Friday, October 18, 2019 by Dailystar.co.uk

Mesut Ozil has revealed what happened when he and Arsenal team-mate Sead Kolasinac were attacked by thugs in north London back in July.

The armed carjackers attempted to get into Ozil’s G-Class Mercedes at first, before being chased for more than a mile through the leafy suburbs near Golders Green.

Explaining exactly what happened, Ozil insists his main concern was the safety of his wife as Kolasinac fought them off bare handed.

“I drove from my house to Sead’s,” Ozil recounted to The Athletic. “He was outside and we spoke. My wife was sitting next to me. Then these guys came. We were looking at each other for 10-15 seconds. We were thinking maybe they want to take a picture or something — that’s happened before.

“Then we noticed that they had a weapon and something was going wrong. They obviously saw the big car and because Sead had just handed me something, they must have noticed he was wearing an expensive watch.

“They told him directly, ‘Give us your watch!’. Sead’s reaction was really, really brave because he attacked one of the attackers. The second one was in front of my car on his moped so I couldn’t drive.

“We were newly wed and I was scared about my wife. I was scared about Sead. I wasn’t thinking about myself. I was worried they were going to open my wife’s door and they tried, so I reached across her to keep it closed.

“I saw one chance to drive. If they got to my wife, something terrible might have happened to her. It was going so quickly that you can’t think properly. I drove a little bit forwards and backwards to try and get the moped away.

“I told Sead, “Jump in! Jump in!” and thankfully he did. The second guy tried again to get in. Sead closed the door and I made a U-turn. There was a construction site there and they took bricks and stones to throw at us.

“I started driving but they followed. I was driving very fast but they kept coming close on the moped. I tried to move the car, block them, escape, but each time they would be there. My wife was extremely scared.

“Nothing happened to us, that’s the most important thing. We were worried these guys had been targeting us, but the police said they found them and a few hours earlier, they tried to robbed other people nearby in a similar way.”

Despite escaping scot-free initially, Ozil admits the attack affected his wife greatly at first, though things have settled down now.

Ozil and his wife are close friends with Kolasinac and his wife

The German said: “My wife wanted to get away immediately. She didn’t feel safe. Even if I let our dogs into the garden and went out with them she would say, ‘Come in, come in, stay in the house!’. She was very concerned.

“Something like this has never happened to us before. She told me — and Sead’s wife told him — let’s go back to our families, to be safe and let everything calm down. It was a bad couple of weeks but never made me want to leave London permanently. Now, even for my wife, everything is OK.

“I returned to training and my football was fine, but my mind was always at home with my wife. She was alone in our house and you never know what happens. So I was thinking, ‘OK, just train and go back to your wife’.”