Mesut Ozil has stunned fans with a ripped new rig, but many of his fans were far less impressed than he might have liked…

Some killer celebrity transformations have graced our screens in recent months — think Joel Kinnaman on ‘Vitamin T’ or Zac Efron in The Iron Claw — but one we certainly didn’t see coming was this unexpected entrant from an A-list footballer… what he probably didn’t expect, however, was the outcry from his fans.

Mesut Ozil has stunned fans with his remarkable new physique… for good and for bad. Once known for his slender build during his time with Arsenal and Real Madrid, Ozil now looks drastically different. Since retiring from football a year ago after his stint in Turkey with Istanbul Basaksehir, the 35-year-old has dedicated himself to the gym, yielding astonishing — bordering on unbelievable — results…

Good Reactions

Ozil often shares videos of his intense workouts via Instagram, often featuring him throwing some pretty serious weight around. However, his latest post focused entirely on showcasing some impressive results of his undeniable hard work. Lifting his T-shirt to reveal a chiselled torso, he captioned the photo to his 28 million followers:

“1 Year Very Hard WORK.”

Unsurprisingly, the post garnered a lot of reactions, with one fan lamenting, “If he had this body in his prime…,” and another joking, “Bro is going to WWE.” Many simply responded with “wow” or a swathe of enthusiastic muscle emojis.

Several big names in the footballing world were equally impressed by Ozil’s transformation. Cristiano Ronaldo commented, “Bro not bad,” with a wink emoji, and former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand added, “Looking strong bro.” Antonio Rudiger, one of his former Germany teammates, called Ozil a “beast.”

After being plagued by injuries towards the end of his career, Ozil retired at 34. Reflecting on his career, he expressed gratitude for his 17 years in professional football, thanking his clubs, coaches, teammates, family, and friends for their support throughout his journey.

Less Good Reactions…

However, while many were keen to cheer on Ozil, an equally large group of people were quick to come crashing down on the athlete, calling him out for — and we can’t deny that we’re broadly in agreement with them on this — pretty shameless and prolonged steroid use to achieve the transformation.

While there’s obviously nothing wrong with jumping on the juice per se, the increased awareness of steroid, TRT, and HGH usage amongst social media users means that if a poster doesn’t specifically call out their use when celebrating their gains, commenters tend to get a little upset and — given the sea change this kind of activity has already had on the way men view their bodies and how they good they “should” look — we can’t say we blame them.

One commenter simply went with “Steriods 100%”, and received over 1300 likes. Another called out his drastically changed facial features, something that steroids are able to accelerate like little else. Another used his comment to warn against younger men and kids taking steroids, while another posted a string of crying emojis…

The lesson here is obvious: if you’re on the gear, make it clear, and we doubt anyone will judge. If you keep it on the sly, however, expect a thorough social media thrashing…