I Am Zlatan Read online

  But no, he perceived me as injured, and it drove me mad. There was something strange in the air. Nobody was saying what it was. Nobody was man enough. That year Malmö FF won the Swedish junior championship title without me, and that didn’t exactly reinforce my self-confidence. Sure, of course, I’d said a load of cocky stuff. Like when my Italian teacher kicked me out of the lesson and I said, “I don’t give a damn about you. I’ll learn it when I become a pro in Italy,” that might be a bit of fun when you know how it turned out. Back then it was just big talk. I didn’t believe it. How could I, when I wasn’t even a regular in the junior team?

  Their first team was having problems in those days. Malmö FF’s first team are, like, the best in the country. When my dad came to Sweden in the ’70s, they totally dominated the league. They even made it to the final in the Champions League, or the European Cup as it was called in those days, and hardly anybody from the junior squad got taken up. The management recruited players from other teams instead. But that year, the team had changed. Although nobody really understood why, things were going really badly for the club. Malmö FF, which had always been at the top of the Allsvenskan league, was in danger of being relegated. They were playing miserably. Their finances were in the toilet. They couldn’t afford to buy any players, so a lot of young players got a chance instead, and you can imagine how we talked about it in the junior squad! Who are they going to call up? Will it be him, or him?

  So it was Tony Flygare of course, as well as Gudmunder Mete and Jimmy Tamandi. But I wasn’t even considered. I was the last one in the team who would get picked up. That’s what I thought. That’s what most people thought. So to be honest, there was nothing to hope for. Even the junior coach was putting me on the bench. Why would the first team take me on? That wasn’t even on the map. Even so, I was no worse than Tony, Mete or Jimmy. I’d shown that in my substitutions. What was the problem? What were they up to? All these thoughts were buzzing round my head, and I became more and more convinced that there was a load of politics involved.

  As a lad, it might have been cool to be different and a little cockier than the others, but in the long run it was just a disadvantage. When it really comes down to it, they didn’t want any brown kids or hotheads who do showy Brazilian moves all the time. Malmö FF was a refined, proud club. In its glory days, all the players had been blonde and well-behaved, with names like Bosse Larsson, who said nice, refined things, and since then they hadn’t taken on many players with immigrant backgrounds. Okay, Yksel Osmanovski had been there, his parents were Macedonian.

  He was from Rosengård as well. He was a pro with Bari then. But he was better-behaved. No, there wouldn’t be any first-team games for me. I’d got my youth team contract. I would have to be satisfied with that and the Under-20s. The Under-20s squad was a thing they had set up together with the football academy at Borgarskolan, since the junior team was for kids up to eighteen. There weren’t all that many of us who got picked up there, not enough to make a team yet. But the idea was to prevent us from leaving the club, and we would often play with lads from the second team against Division 3 sides and stuff. It was nothing great, but I had an opportunity to get myself noticed.

  Sometimes we would train with the first team, and I refused to fit in. Normally in those situations, a junior doesn’t go in for wicked dribbling. He doesn’t make big tackles at close quarters or start screaming, “Fucking sweep it!” He behaves. But I thought, why not? I’ve got nothing to lose. I gave it everything I had. I just went for it, and of course, I noticed they were talking about me. “Who does he think he is?” and stuff, and I would mutter, “Go to hell!” and just carry on. I kept at my tricks. I played the tough guy, and sometimes Roland Andersson, the first team coach, was watching.

  At first I was filled with hope, like, I wonder if he thinks I’m good? But that changed with all the crap that was happening around me. When I saw him again one day on the sidelines, my only thought was, I bet he’s heard some grumbling! Some complaints. Around that time I was feeling even more disappointed about football, and I wasn’t having much success in other areas either, especially in school. I was still shy and lacking confidence, and I often only went to school to have lunch. I ate like a horse. But I basically didn’t care about the rest. I was doing less and less schoolwork, and finally I dropped out of school altogether, and there was a load of hassle and arguing at home.

  It was like a minefield, and I kept out of the way and carried on with my tricks in the yard. I put up photos of Ronaldo in my room. Ronaldo was the man. Not only because of his stepovers and goals in the World Cup. Ronaldo was brilliant on every level. He was what I wanted to be. A guy who made a difference. The players in the Swedish national side – who were they? There was no superstar, nobody that was talked about around the world. Ronaldo was my hero and I studied him online and tried to take in his movements, and I thought I was getting to be an awesome player. I danced down the pitch with the ball.

  But what did I have to show for it? Nothing, I thought. The world was unfair. Guys like me didn’t have a chance, and I wasn’t going to be a star, no matter what I could do. That’s how it looked. I was finished. I wasn’t right, and I tried to find other paths. But I didn’t have the energy to go for it. I just carried on playing. The day when Roland Andersson stood there glowering, I was playing with the Under-20s on Pitch No. 1. Pitch No. 1 no longer exists. But it was a grass pitch, right next to Malmö Stadium, and afterwards I heard that Roland Andersson wanted to speak to me. That was all I knew. I started to panic a little, to be honest, and started thinking:

  Have I nicked a bike? Have I headbutted someone? I went over all the stupid stuff I’d done in my mind, and there was plenty of it. But I couldn’t figure out how any of it could have reached him, and I thought up about a thousand explanations.

  Roland is a pretty loud guy with a deep voice. He’s nice, but strict. He dominates a room, and I think my heart was pounding a little.

  Roland Andersson, I’d heard he played in the World Cup in Argentina. He wasn’t just one of the old Malmö FF stars from the glory days. He had been in the national side as well. A bloke with respect, and there he was at his desk, not cracking a hint of a smile. He looked serious, like, get ready for the ultimate bollocking.

  “All right, Roland. How are things? Is there something you wanted?”

  I always tried to play it cocky like that. It’s something that had stayed with me since I was little. You couldn’t show any weakness.

  “Sit down.”

  “Okay, take it easy. Nobody died. I promise.”

  “Zlatan, it’s time for you to stop playing with the little kids.”

  With the little kids? What’s he on about, I thought, and what on earth have I done to the little kids?

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Are you talking about anybody in particular?”

  “It’s time for you to start playing with the big boys.”

  I still didn’t get it.

  “Huh?”

  “Welcome to the first team, lad,” he continued, and honestly, I cannot describe the feeling, not in a million years.

  It was as if I’d been lifted up ten metres in the air, and I’m guessing I went out and nicked a new bike and felt like the coolest bloke in the city.

  5

  AT MALMÖ, we had a thing called the Mile.

  The Mile was a bloody long course. We would run from the stadium out to the Water Tower, down along Limhamnsvägen, past all the millionaires’ piles there with views out towards the sea – especially one house I remember that was pink, and we were all like, wow, what kind of people live there? How many million must they have in the bank?

  We’d continue towards the Kungsparken park, through a tunnel, and then up to the school I used to go to, in full view of all the girls and the rich kids. Man, what a buzz that gave me! That was my revenge. Me, the prat from Rosengård who’d hardly dared to speak
to a girl, and there I was running with all the top blokes from Malmö FF, like Mats Lilienberg and the rest. It was the greatest thing, and I really made the most of it.

  At the start, I followed the crowd. I was new in the first team and wanted to show that I was up to the task. But then I realised: the key thing was to impress the girls. So Tony, Mete and I employed some little tricks. We ran the first four kilometres. But when we reached Limhamnsvägen, we turned off by the bus stop. Nobody saw us. We’d been bringing up the rear, so we could calmly wait around for the bus and climb aboard. Of course we were laughing our heads off. It was outrageous! Then we had to duck down like crazy when we rode past the rest of the team. I mean, that business with the bus didn’t really indicate the right attitude. At the end of the road we got off, completely rested and far ahead of the others, and hid in a corner. When the rest of the team ran past, we dashed off and had plenty of power to show off in front of the school. Wow, the girls must have been thinking, those guys look like they could take anything.

  Another day on the Mile, I said to Tony and Mete, “This is ridiculous. Let’s nick a bike instead.” I think they were a bit sceptical. They didn’t have my level of experience in this area. But I convinced them, and so I nicked a bike and rode off with them on the rear parcel rack. Other times things went completely off the rails. I wasn’t exactly the most mature guy in town, and Tony was an idiot as well. That fool had got into porn movies. He went into a shop and hired a video and bought some chocolate instead of going on the run, and we sat and ate the chocolate while the others in the team jogged their Mile.

  I suppose I should be glad Roland Andersson believed our explanations. Or maybe he didn’t. He was nice. He understood us young guys. He had a sense of humour. But of course, there were rumblings elsewhere: what’s with that guy, Zlatan? Where’s his humility? I kept hearing the old crap: “He dribbles the ball too much. He doesn’t think of the team.” Some of it was perfectly true. Definitely! I had a lot to learn. The rest was jealousy. The players sensed the competition, and I wasn’t really just a cheater.

  I really put my all into it and wasn’t satisfied with just going to Malmö FF’s training sessions. I also spent hours playing on the pitch at my mum’s as well. I had a trick. I’d head out to Rosengård and shout to the kids, “You’ll get a tenner if you can get the ball away from me!” It wasn’t just a game. It polished my technique. It taught me to use my body to guard the ball.

  When I wasn’t goofing around with the little kids, I’d play football videogames. I could go ten hours at a stretch, and I’d often spot solutions in the games that I parlayed into real life. It was football 24/7, you could say. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing in training sessions at Malmö FF, and I might have messed about a bit too much. It was like they’d brought a completely irrational factor into the club, a bloke they couldn’t comprehend. I mean, any bastard will make a pass in this or that scenario and will say a given thing in a particular situation. But me … I came from another planet. I just kept laying it on with all the mental Rosengård stuff.

  It was often the older players against the younger ones in the club. We younger ones were supposed to haul trunks and stuff and wait on the others. It was ridiculous, and the atmosphere was rotten right from the beginning. At the start of the season, Tommy Söderberg, the club’s captain, had predicted that Malmö FF would win the whole league, but since then one thing after another had gone wrong, and now the club was in danger of being relegated to the second division. It was the first time in, like, sixty years, and the supporters were up in arms, and all the older players in the team had the world on their shoulders.

  They all knew what it would mean for the city if they didn’t remain in the Allsvenskan League – nothing short of a disaster. It was no time for partying or Brazilian footwork. But I was still elated at having been brought up into the first team and wanted to show them who I was. That might not have been the right attitude to take.

  But it was in my blood. I was in a new gang. I wanted to make people sit up and take notice, and I refused to bow and scrape. When Jonnie Fedel, the goalkeeper, asked, “Where the hell are the balls?” on the first day of training, I gave a little start, especially when I noticed that everybody was looking at me and appeared to be waiting for me to go and fetch them. But there was no way, especially when he put it like that.

  “If you want them, you can go and get ’em yourself!” I spat, and that was not the way people usually spoke at Malmö FF.

  That was the council estate talking again, and it didn’t go down well. But I had support from Roland and the assistant coach Thomas Sjöberg, I knew that, even if they mostly believed in Tony, of course. He got to play and scored a goal in his debut match. I was on the bench, and tried to go for it even more in training. But that didn’t help, and I swore. Maybe I should have been satisfied and not in such a hurry. But that’s not how I work. I want to get in there and show what I can do straight away. But it looked like I wouldn’t get a chance. On September 19th we were going to be away against Halmstad at the Örjans Vall stadium.

  It was a make-or-break match. If we won or played to a draw, we would remain in the Allsvenskan League. Otherwise we would have to battle it out in the relegation playoffs, and everyone in the club was nervous and jittery. The teams were deadlocked. At the start of the second half, Niklas Gudmundsson, our striker, was stretchered off and I was hoping to get substituted in. But no, Roland didn’t so much as glance at me, and time passed. Nothing happened. It was 1–1 and that would have to do. But with only fifteen minutes remaining, our team captain Hasse Mattisson was also injured, and Halmstad made it 2–1 right after that, and I watched as the entire team went pale.

  That was when Roland put me in. While all the rest were having a nervous breakdown, I got kicking with a massive adrenaline rush. I was seventeen. It was the Allsvenskan League, with 10,000 people in the stands. It said Ibrahimović on my shirt. It was like, wow, this is big – nothing can stop me now, and straight away I made a shot at goal that grazed the crossbar. But then something happened. We were awarded a penalty in the final minutes, and you know what that meant. There was a sense of life and death. If we made the penalty, the club’s honour would be secure, otherwise we risked disaster, and all the big guys hesitated. They weren’t willing to take the shot. There was too much at stake, so Tony, that cocky bastard, stepped up.

  “I’ll take it!”

  That took some balls. A Balkan thing to do – like, don’t back down! But now, in hindsight, I think somebody should have stopped him. He was too young to take on something like that, and I remember how he took up his position and the whole team held their breath or looked away. It was horrible. But the goalkeeper saved it. I think he faked him out a bit. We lost, and afterwards Tony ended up in the freezer. That was a pity for him, and I know there are journalists who see that as a symbolic thing. That was the moment I overtook him. Tony never made it back into top-level football, and instead I got to play more. I got substituted in six times in the Allsvenskan, and in some interview, Roland referred to me as a ‘diamond in the rough’. Word got round, and it wasn’t long before kids started coming up after matches to ask for my autograph. Not that it was any big thing yet. But it got me pumped up, and I thought: I’ve got to get even sharper now! I can’t disappoint these kids!

  Check this out! That’s I wanted to shout to them. Check out the most awesome thing in the world! Actually, that was a bit strange, wasn’t it? I hadn’t done anything yet – not a lot, at any rate. Even so, young fans turned up out of nowhere, and it made me want to show off my moves even more. Those little squirts made me feel, like, I had a right to my game. They wouldn’t have come up if I’d been some boring team player! I started to play for those kids, and right from the start I signed every autograph. Nobody was left out. I was young myself. I understood exactly what it would have felt like if my mates had got an autograph but I didn’t.

  “Everybody h
appy?” I asked before I rushed off, and there was so much happening around me that I didn’t worry too much about the team’s setbacks.

  It was bizarre, in a way. I was making a name for myself, all the while my club was going through its biggest crisis ever, pretty much. When we lost at home to Trelleborg, the fans wept in the stands and yelled “Resign!” at Roland. The police had to come in and protect him, and people threw rocks at the Trelleborg bus and there were riots and shit. Things didn’t get any better a few days later, when we were humiliated by AIK – and the disaster was real.

  We crashed out of the Allsvenskan League. For the first time in 64 years, Malmö FF would not be playing in the top division. Players sat in the locker room hiding under towels while the management tried to put a positive spin on things or whatever they were doing, and frustration and shame were bubbling to the surface everywhere. Some certainly thought I was a huge diva who’d been running around doing fancy tricks in all those serious matches. But I didn’t really care, to be honest. I had other things to think about. Something amazing had happened.

  It was right after I had been taken up into the first team. We were out training on Pitch No. 1 and obviously we were Malmö FF. We were – or rather, had been – the pride of the city. But there weren’t many people who came to watch our training sessions, especially in those days. But that afternoon, a bloke with dark greyish hair turned up. I spotted him from far away. I didn’t recognise him. I just noticed that he was staring at us from near a tree over there, and I felt a little strange. It was like I could sense something, and so I started to do even more tricks. But it took a while before the penny dropped.

  I’d had to look out for myself when I was growing up, I hadn’t had much, and sure, Dad had done some totally amazing things as well. But he hadn’t been like the other dads I’d seen. He hadn’t watched my matches or encouraged me with my studies. He’d had his drinking and his war and his Yugo music. But now, I couldn’t believe it. That bloke really was my dad. He had come to watch, and I was completely blown away. It was as if I was dreaming, and I started to play with incredible strength. Shit, Dad’s here! This is mental. Look at me, Dad, I wanted to yell. Look at me! Check it out! Your son is the most amazing, awesome player!