Football Short Stories

Locker Room Gossip - Mesut Özil

"Oi Mesut, what's up with you?"

Mesut lifted his eyes that were glued to the floor of the locker room to see who those words came from. It was his teammate, Bastian Schweinsteiger who was looking at him with a concerned look painted on his face. The whole German national team was currently getting changed after a tough practice and soon, most of them were staring at him.

"Yeah, you've been out of it all practice, is there anything wrong?" Thomas Müller added.

"Kind of, i don't know actually..." Mesut shrugged hopping they would just drop it but they carried on asking questions until Mario Götze came to a conclusion:

"I know that look guys, Mesut has girl problems" he said smiling shrewdly.

"Is that it?" Sami Khedira asked with a smirk.

"Well... sort of"

"Ok Mesut, quit giving aproximate answers, come on we're your teammates, you can tell us!" Marco Reus said in an encouraging tone.

"I'm glad to be providing gossip material for the whole team, but it's kind of private" Mesut said with a light smile and the guys laughed.

"Is something wrong with your girlfriend?" Lukas Podolski asked.

"You guys are not going to drop it, are you?" He asked lifting an eyebrow. They all shook their heads with evil smirks on their faces.

"Not at all, so you better start taking Mes, we could stay here all night" Thomas laughed.

"Well" Mesut sighed "Nora's been off lately..." the hesitation was clear in his voice.

"That's it?" Mario said, expressing what everyone was thinking.

"Oh I'm sorry, were you guys hoping for something juicier?" Mesut said in a mocking tone.

"Well, yeah kinda" Bastian shrugged.

Not many people knew about this, but the German players could really be a bunch of blabbermouths at times. Especially when they were all together. Any secret given would be guaranteed to spread throughout the locker room in no time. And Mesut figured that topics for gossip must've been scarce, which was why they were all so interested in his love life.

"But anyway, why don't you elaborate a bit" Marco continued "how is she being 'off'?"

"I don't really know, she's being weird, distant, she doesn't say much anymore... I don't know it's just weird" Mesut said thoughtfully.

"Easy" Lukas dropped "She's cheating on you."

They all turned his way with wide eyed looks, including Mesut.

"Lukas" Thomas said.

"What?"

"Shut up!" he exclaimed rolling his eyes.

"I don't think that's it anyway" Mesut said "She works from home and she hardly ever leaves the house anymore."

"In that case, I have to ask, are you cheating on her? Maybe she found out and that's why she's being so weird" Lukas said.

"Oh my god, Lukas!" Sami said rolling his eyes.

"What? It's possible" he shrugged innocently.

"What's up with you and cheating? Is it because of Carolina?" Mario asked.

"I thought you were over that bitch" Bastian said.

"To hell with that whore, I am over her" he stated "But I mean if Carolina fucked me over by cheating on me, there's no reason why Nora couldn't be doing it to Mesut as well"