Once you locate the little town of Devrek, deep in the Black Sea Region of Turkey, it is not difficult to find the road known as Mesut Ozil Avenue. The town’s leaders have designed it that way, erecting a giant billboard which serves as a tribute to their favourite grandson and a constant reminder of their greatest source of pride. It is a two-way image, unavoidable to those entering Devrek and hard to miss for those who are leaving.

Not so long ago, the billboard showed Ozil posing in the colours of the German national team, his arms folded and his expression stern. Now it displays a more familiar picture. On the left is Ozil, grinning widely as he holds up an Arsenal shirt, and on the right is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the autocratic Turkish president, with only the faintest hint of a smile forming on his lips.

This single photograph, taken in London’s Four Seasons hotel on a Sunday evening in May 2018, marks the defining moment in a year of extreme turbulence for one of the most complex and culturally significant figures in football. It is the starting point for 15 months of chaos and change for Ozil and a pivotal chapter in a story that, whether he likes it or not, has always been about so much more than sport.