Mario Gotze has had a tough time since scoring the winning goal in the 2014 World Cup final.
The German playmaker was one of the hottest young prospects in world football just a few years ago as he led Borussia Dortmund to a Champions League final in 2013 and bagged the goal that brought Germany its first World Cup trophy as a unified nation a year later.
But since then, he has fell out of favour under Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich and there have been reports that his successor Carlo Ancelotti isn’t too pushed on the 24-year-old either.
Gotze’s woes at club level appear to have followed him onto the international stage, and he put in two underwhelming performances for Germany against Ukraine and Poland at Euro 2016 as the World Champions have yet to find the form that made them so dominant in Brazil two years ago.
Ahead of Germany’s final Group C game against Northern Ireland on Tuesday, Gotze was asked about his poor form, and his response shows that he hasn’t completely lost his creative spark.
Quite the analogy from Mario Götze today. On recent criticism of him: "Sometimes you are the dog, sometimes you are the tree."
— Archie Rhind-Tutt (@archiert1) June 19, 2016
…if you didn't clock what Herr Götze said first time round, here's a helpful explanation from the internet… pic.twitter.com/j04CmzFhM7
— Archie Rhind-Tutt (@archiert1) June 19, 2016
He may not ever become the German Lionel Messi, as he was dubbed when breaking through at Borussia Dortmund, but with philosophical musings like that, Gotze could just yet become the German Joey Barton.
