David Moyes granted release to Everton star who moved for £35m before retiring earlier than expected

Former Everton player Shkodran Mustafi celebrates his 33rd birthday today

Celebrating his 33rd birthday today, Shkodran Mustafi, snapped up by David Moyes but then granted a free transfer, managed just 14 minutes of first team football at Everton.

That came in a European dead rubber but less than five years after his solitary outing as a substitute for the Blues, he had a World Cup winners’ medal with Germany.

Born in Bad Hersfield, Hesse to a Macedonian Albanian family, Mustafi had spells with local side FC Bebra, SV Rotenburg and Hamburg in youth football before joining Everton’s academy in 2009.

Turning down offers from Manchester City and Newcastle United, he’d later state “Goodison Park feels like home” but despite being a German international at various age group levels, he was unable to force his way into Moyes’ plans at a time when, despite Phil Jagielka having suffered a long-term injury, his options included Sylvain Distin, Joseph Yobo and Arne Slot’s current assistant coach at Liverpool, John Heitinga.

It was only when the Blues had secured qualification from their group in the UEFA Europa League in the 2009/10 season as runners-up behind Benfica that Mustafi made his way into a matchday squad.

Although the manager made nine changes from their previous fixture – a 3-3 draw at Chelsea – and handing debuts to Merseysiders Jake Bidwell and Adam Forshaw plus goalkeeper Carlo Nash in his starting line-up at home to BATE Borisov, Mustafi was still only named on the bench and did not enter the fray until just after Alyaksandr Yurevich had netted the only goal of the game for the Belarusian outfit when he replaced captain for the night, Tony Hibbert. He was subsequently among the substitutes on a further nine occasions over the next two seasons but never took to the field again.