I Am Zlatan Page 17

  “Zlatan did it on purpose,” he said, and I saw red.

  What the hell! Why wasn’t he giving this up?

  “I didn’t injure you on purpose, and you know that, and if you accuse me again I’ll break both your legs, and that time it will be on purpose,” I said, and of course, everybody on van der Vaart’s side immediately started going, “You see, you see, he’s aggressive. He’s nuts,” and Koeman tried to calm things down.

  “Now, we don’t need to go that far, we can sort this out.”

  But honestly, that didn’t feel very likely, and we were summoned in to see Louis van Gaal, the director. He and I had argued in the past, and it was no fun having to go into van Gaal’s office together with van der Vaart. I didn’t exactly feel surrounded by friends, and van Gaal immediately launched into his power play.

  “I am the director here,” he said.

  Like, thanks for that information!

  “And I’m telling you,” he continued, “to bury the hatchet. When Rafael is injury-free, you will play together!”

  “No way,” I replied. “As long as he’s on the pitch, I’m not playing.”

  “What are you saying?” countered van Gaal. “He’s my captain, and you will play with him! You’ll do it for the club.”

  “Your captain?” I asked. “What kind of rubbish is that? Rafael has been going to the papers and claiming I injured him on purpose. What kind of captain is that? One who attacks his own teammates? I’m not playing with him – no chance. Never, ever. You can say whatever you want.”

  Then I left. The stakes were high. Of course, I had a boost from knowing that I had Juventus in the works. Nothing was signed yet, but I was really hoping, and I talked about it with Mino: What’s happening? What are they saying? Our fortunes kept changing, and at the end of August we were going to play NAC Breda in the league. The papers were still writing about our conflict, and the journalists were on van der Vaart’s side more than ever. He was their favourite. I was the thug who’d injured him.

  “Get ready to get jeered off,” Mino said. “The spectators are going to hate you.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “Good?”

  “That kind of stuff gets me fired up, you know that. I’ll show them.”

  I was up for it. I really was. But the situation was complicated, and I told Koeman about Juventus. I wanted to prepare him, and discussions like that are always delicate. I liked Koeman. He and Beenhakker were the first ones who’d understood my potential at Ajax, and I had no doubt he’d understand me now. Who wouldn’t want to go to Juventus? But Koeman was hardly going to let me go willingly, and I knew he’d recently been quoted in the media saying that certain people seemed to think they were bigger than the club, and it was obvious he meant me. I had to choose my words carefully, and right from the start I decided to use a few expressions van Gaal had used with me.

  “I really don’t want this to turn into a row as well,” I said to Koeman. “But Juventus want me, and I hope you can sort it out. An opportunity like this only comes along once in a lifetime,” and sure, just as I thought, Koeman understood – he’d been a pro himself.

  “But I don’t want you to leave us,” he said. “I want to keep you here. I’ll fight for it!”

  “Do you know what van Gaal said?”

  “What?”

  “He said he doesn’t need me for the league, that you’ll do well anyway. He needs me for the Champions League.”

  “What the hell? He said that?”

  Koeman went mad. He was furious with van Gaal. He felt that statement meant his hands were tied and limited his chances to fight for me. That was exactly what I wanted, and I remember I went out onto the pitch and thought that now it was do or die. It was a crucial match for me. The Juventus crew would be observing me closely. But it was mental. It felt like the Dutch were spitting at me. They jeered and yelled, and part way up in the stands sat everyone’s golden boy, Rafael van der Vaart, receiving applause. It was just ridiculous. I was seen as a bastard. He was the innocent victim. But all that would change.

  We were playing against Breda, and with 20 minutes remaining we were ahead 3–0. As a replacement for Rafael van der Vaart we’d brought in a young guy from the Ajax youth academy called Wesley Sneijder, and that kid was good. He was an intelligent player. He scored 4–1. He broke through, and just five minutes after his goal I got the ball some 20 metres outside the penalty area. I had a defender on my back and I nudged and forced my way around him and broke loose, and then I dribbled past another guy. That was the beginning. That was the intro.

  I continued with a fake shot and got nearer the penalty area and feinted again. I was trying to find a shooting position. But I kept getting new defenders on me. They were swarming around me, and maybe I should have passed, but I didn’t see any chances. Instead, I went forward with a burst of speed and some nimble slalom dribbling, spun round the goalkeeper as well and used my left foot to land the ball in an open goal. That was an instant classic.

  It was christened my Maradona goal, because it was somewhat reminiscent of Maradona’s goal against England in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final. It was a dribble past the entire team, and the whole stadium exploded. Everybody went nuts. Even Koeman was leaping about like a madman, regardless of how much I wanted to leave him. It was like all the hatred against me was transformed into love and triumph.

  Everybody was cheering and screaming, they were all on their feet, jumping up and down – all except one, that is. The cameras panned across the roaring stadium over to Rafael van der Vaart. He was sitting there, stock-still. He was expressionless, didn’t move a muscle, even though his own team had scored a goal. He just sat there, as if my performance was about the worst thing that had ever happened to him, and maybe it was. Because, don’t forget, before the kickoff they’d all been booing me!

  Now they were only screaming one name, and it was mine. Nobody cared about van der Vaart, and the goal was replayed on TV throughout that evening and the following day. It was later voted the best goal of the year by Eurosport viewers. But I was focusing on something completely different. The clock was ticking. The transfer window would not be open for many more days, and Moggi was kicking up a fuss. Or faking it – it was always hard to tell. Suddenly, Moggi announced that Trézéguet and I couldn’t play together, and David Trézéguet was the big goal-scorer at Juventus.

  “What kind of idiocy is that?” said Mino.

  “Their playing styles don’t fit together. It won’t work,” he replied, and that didn’t sound good – not at all.

  When Moggi got something into his head, it wasn’t easy to get him to change his mind. But Mino saw a way out. He realised Capello, the manager, had a different view. Capello had wanted me for a long time, and sure, absolutely, Moggi was the director. But Fabio Capello was not one to be taken lightly, either. That guy can put any star in his place with a single glance. Capello is one tough guy, and so Mino invited them both out to dinner, and he started off with a fierce opener:

  “Is it true that Trézéguet and Zlatan can’t play together?”

  “What kind of nonsense is that? What’s that got to do with our dinner?” Capello responded.

  “Moggi said their playing styles don’t work together, isn’t that right, Luciano?”

  Moggi nodded.

  “So my question to Fabio is this: is that right?” Mino continued.

  “I don’t give a damn whether it’s right or not, and neither should you. What happens on the pitch is my problem. Just get Zlatan here, and I’ll take care of the rest,” Capello replied, and really, what could Moggi do?

  He couldn’t give the coach instructions on what to do on the pitch. He was forced to give in, and of course Mino relished that. He’d got exactly what he wanted. But nothing was finalised, and the Dutch football gala was being held in Amsterdam.

  Mino and I were ther
e to celebrate Maxwell, who was receiving the award for best player in the league, and we were both happy for him. But there wasn’t a lot to celebrate. Mino was really worked up. He went back and forth, talking to the directors of Juventus and Ajax, and there were new problems and question marks arising all the time, whether they were real problems or just things invented to improve people’s bargaining positions. The situation seemed deadlocked, and the transfer window was closing the following evening, and I was completely beside myself.

  I was sitting at home in Diemen playing on my Xbox – Evolution, I think, or Call of Duty, both awesome games. That helped me almost to forget everything. But Mino kept ringing me every few minutes. He was annoyed. My bag was packed and Juventus had a private plane waiting for me at the airport. So definitely, the club wanted me. But they couldn’t agree on a fee. There was one thing and another, and the management at Ajax didn’t seem to think the offer was serious. The Italians didn’t even have a lawyer there in Amsterdam, and I tried pressure Ajax myself: “As I see it, I’m not playing with you any more. I’m finished with you!” I told van Gaal and his guys.

  But nothing helped. Nothing happened, and time was passing, and I was totally wrapped up with my Xbox – you should see me when I’m like that. I’m totally focused. My fingers dance over the controls. It’s like a fever. All my frustration came out in the game. I was just clicking away while Mino was fighting to clinch the deal. He was tearing his hair out. Why couldn’t Moggi even send a lawyer to Amsterdam? What kind of blasé style was that?

  It could have been part of the game, of course. Difficult to tell. Nothing felt certain, and Mino decided to make a move. He phoned his own lawyer. “Get on a flight to Amsterdam,” he told him, “and pretend you represent Juventus,” and sure enough, the lawyer flew in and played his little charade, and that helped, the negotiations picked up. But they didn’t come to an agreement, and finally Mino went spare. He phoned again.

  “Fuck it,” he said. “Bring your lawyer and get on a plane here. We’ll hammer it out here,” and I put down my game controller and headed out – I barely locked the door, to be honest.

  I just headed out and went to the stadium, where the club’s management were sitting with Mino’s lawyer, and there was no mistaking that everybody got really stressed when I walked in, and the lawyer whirled round and said only one thing:

  “There’s just one document missing, one single document. Then everything will be set.”

  “We haven’t got time. We’ve got to go, Mino says we’re not gonna bother,” I replied, and we drove to the airport and Juventus’ private plane.

  I’d already rung my dad at this point: “Hey, this is urgent, I’m in the middle of putting together a deal with Juventus. Do you want to be here for it?”

  You bet he did, and I was happy about that. If this came together, it would be my boyhood dream come true, and it would be great to have Dad there – me and him, after we’d been through so much together. I know he immediately headed to the Copenhagen airport and flew to Milan, where Mino’s guy picked him up and drove him to the club’s offices. That’s the office where all the transactions in the transfer market are registered.

  He got there before me, and when I turned up with the lawyer, I was knocked sideways – like, is that you? It wasn’t the Dad I was used to, definitely not the one who used to sit at home in his workman’s dungarees listening to Yugo music on headphones. This was a guy in a nice suit, a man who could pass for any Italian bigwig, and I felt proud – and really shocked, to be honest. I’d never seen him in a suit before.

  “Dad.”

  “Zlatan.”

  That was really nice, and there were journalists and photographers standing around outside. The rumour had got round. It was big news in Italy. But nothing was finalised. The clock was ticking. There wasn’t much time left to play around, and Moggi carried on making a fuss and bluffing, and unfortunately, it was producing results. My price had gone down, from Mino’s original demand of €35 million to 25, 20 and finally €16 million, which was 160 million kronor, and sure, of course, that was still a lot. It was twice as much as Ajax had paid once. But it shouldn’t have been a big thing to Juventus. The club had sold Zidane to Real Madrid for €86 million, 700 million kronor at the time. They could bloody well afford it. The Ajax blokes didn’t need to be worried. But they were nervous, or at least claimed to be. Juventus didn’t even manage to scare up a bank guarantee. Sure, there may well have been a genuine explanation for that.

  Despite all their successes, Juventus had made a loss of €20 million the previous year, but that was nothing unusual for big clubs – quite the opposite. No matter how much they took in, their costs always seemed to be getting bigger. No, that business about not having a bank guarantee, I wonder if that wasn’t another trick, another negotiating bluff as well? Juventus was one of the biggest clubs in the world, and ought to be able to come up with the money. But without a bank guarantee, Ajax refused to sign anything, and more time passed. It was hopeless, and sure enough, Moggi sat there in his chair puffing on his fat cigar, and people thought he had things under control, like, this will sort itself out, I know what I’m doing. But Mino was standing a little way away with his headset on, screaming at the Ajax management:

  “If you don’t sign, you won’t get any of the sixteen million. You won’t get Zlatan. You won’t get anything. You understand? Not a damn thing! And do you think Juventus are going to try and get out of paying? Juventus! You lot are nuts. But sure, do what you like, just pass all this up. Go ahead!”

  Those were tough words. Mino knows his stuff. But nothing happened, not a thing, and the atmosphere kept getting more tense, and I guess Mino needed to find an outlet for his energy. Or maybe he was just taking the piss. There were loads of football things in there, and Mino picked up a ball and started doing tricks with it. It was completely mental. What was he playing at? I didn’t get it. That ball flew round and bounced and hit Moggi in the head and on the shoulder, and everybody was wondering, what’s this all about? Is he playing keepy-uppy in this situation? In the middle of a bloody negotiating crisis. It wasn’t exactly the time for games.

  “Stop that! You’re hitting people on the head.”

  “No, no, come on now,” he countered. “We’ll play for it, try and get it, come on, Luciano, get up and show us your skills. Here comes a corner, Zlatan. Get in there. Head it, you dozy bastard.”

  He kept that up, and to be honest, I have no idea what the registrar and all the others in there were thinking. But one thing’s for sure: Mino gained a new supporter that day – my dad. Dad was just laughing. Like, what kind of guy is this? How cool can he be? To do tricks in front of big shots like Moggi. That was Dad’s style. It was like singing and dancing in the wrong setting. It was doing his thing no matter what, and ever since that day Dad hasn’t just collected cuttings about me. He also pastes in everything about Mino as well. Mino is my dad’s favourite mentalist, because he noticed something: Mino wasn’t just a nutter. He also landed the deal. Ajax didn’t want to miss out on both me and the money, and their management signed at the last moment. It was past 10 o’clock then, at least I think so, and the club’s office really should have closed at seven. But we brought it home, and it took a while to sink in. Me, a pro in Italy? Mental.

  Afterwards we drove to Turin, and on the motorway Mino rang ahead to Urbani, Juventus’ regular restaurant, and asked them to stay open late, and of course it wasn’t hard to persuade the staff. We were welcomed like kings just before midnight, and we sat down and ate and went over the whole deal, and honestly, I was especially happy Dad was there to see everything.

  “Proud of you, Zlatan,” he said.

  Me and Fabio Cannavaro went to Juventus at the same time, and we held a joint press conference at the Stadio delle Alpi in Turin. Cannavaro is a guy who jokes and laughs all the time. I liked him straight away. He was voted World Player of the Year a fe
w years later, and he helped me out a lot in those early days. But then after the press conference, Dad and I flew straight to Amsterdam, where we said goodbye to Mino before continuing to Gothenburg, where I was going to be playing in an international match.

  That was a frantic period, and I never returned to my terraced house in Diemen. I left it behind, simple as that, and for quite a while I lived at the Hotel Le Meridien on the Via Nizza in Turin. I lived there until I moved into Filippo Inzaghi’s apartment on the Piazza Castello.

  So it was Mino who went to Diemen to pick up my old stuff. But when he entered the house, he heard some noises from upstairs, and froze. Was it a burglar? There were clearly voices coming from up there and Mino crept upstairs, ready for a fight.

  But he didn’t meet any burglars. It was my Xbox which was still on and had been humming along for three weeks, ever since I’d dashed off to take Juventus’ private plane to Milan.

  12

  “IBRA, COME IN HERE.”

  Fabio Capello, possibly the most successful European manager of the past 10 years, was calling me, and I thought: what have I done now? My whole childhood fear of meetings returned, and Capello could make anyone nervous. Wayne Rooney once said that when Capello walks past you in the corridor, it feels sort of like you’re dead, and that’s the truth. He would usually just pick up his coffee and pass by you without so much as a glance. It was almost creepy. Sometimes he’d mutter a brief ‘ciao’. Otherwise he’d just disappear on his way, and it felt like you weren’t even there at all.