Mesut Özil's retirement from international football

In a trio of explosive tweets, Mesut Özil retired from international football and roundly attacked the German Football Association (DFB), its President Reinhard Grindel, and double standards in Germany's media and society. Özil's photo op with Recep Tayyip Erdogan was ill-advised, but the reaction to it, and his scapegoating by the German FA, is a sad tale of poor management with worrying xenophobic notes, writes Matt Pearson.