I Am Zlatan Part 20

People yell harsh things all the time out there. But I was Ibra. Milan were Milan. We were leading the league. There was politics involved. They saw an opportunity to punish us. That's what I believe. I got a three-match ban. This stupid thing looked like it was going to cost us the Scudetto, and the club was doing everything to salvage the situation. We came up with an explanation. We said I'd been swearing at myself. I mean, we had to fight back: "He was angry about his mistakes on the pitch. He was talking to himself."

But honestly, that was bulls.h.i.t sorry about that! On the other hand, the punishment was ridiculously harsh. Vaffanculo? That was stupid of me. But it was nothing. As a swear word, vaffanculo isn't even particularly strong. You should know I've heard worse. But things were the way they were. I had to lump it and take the mocking and scolding, and I was awarded some b.o.o.by prize by a TV channel, the Tapiro d'Oro or 'golden tapir'. That's the game. They build you up. They knock you down. I was used to it.

Meanwhile, Napoli had shot up to second place in the league table just ahead of Inter. Napoli had had their glory days in the '80s when Maradona played for them, but in more recent years they'd had all sorts of difficulties and they were only just back on top form.

We were leading by three points, but there were six matches left to play and I was under a ban for three of them. That was s.h.i.t, but I did get a chance to rest and think about my life. I was working on this book. It forced me to remember things and it struck me I haven't always been the nicest guy. I haven't always said the right things, and of course I take full responsibility for all that. I'm not going to blame anybody else.

But still, there are a lot of people like me out there, young guys and girls who get told off because they're not like everybody else, and sometimes, sure, they need to get told off. I believe in discipline. But what makes me so angry is all those coaches who've never fought their way to the top themselves and yet are so sure: this is how we're going to do it, and no other way! That's so narrow-minded. So stupid!

There are a thousand paths to go down, and the one that's a little different and a little awkward is often the best one. I hate it when people who stand out get put down. If I hadn't been different, I wouldn't be sitting here now, and, obviously, I don't mean: be like me, try to be like Zlatan! Not at all! I'm talking about going your own way, whatever that way is, and there shouldn't be any d.a.m.n pet.i.tions and n.o.body should get the cold shoulder just because they're not like the others.

But of course, it's not good to ruin the Scudetto you've promised your club just because you've got a terrible temper.

28.

ADRIANO GALLIANI was sitting up in the Stadio Olimpico in Rome with his eyes closed, begging, please let us win, please let us win, and I can really understand him. This was the 7th of May 2011. It was half past ten at night, and the minutes were ticking by. They were ticking too slowly, and Allegri and the lads were fidgeting on the bench. Whether you believed in G.o.d or not, it was time to pray. We were facing Roma, and if we managed just one point the Scudetto would be ours, the first in seven years.

I was back on the pitch. How great that felt! I'd been away for a while because of my ban. But now I could be there and decide the league t.i.tle, not that I thought it was going to be easy. Roma and AC Milan were at war as well, not just because it was two major cities facing one another. This was a crucial match for both teams.

We were fighting for the league t.i.tle, and Roma were fighting to claim fourth place. A fourth-place finish is a big deal, because as number four you get to be in the Champions League and that means a lot of money for the TV rights. But something had happened back in 1989, and people have long memories in Italian football. Things cast a long shadow, like I said. They keep hanging around. Everybody remembers Ronaldo, who didn't get his penalty that time. But this was something far worse. It was Antonio De Falchi, a young Roma supporter who'd travelled to Milan to watch the away match against AC Milan. His mother was worried, and told him, "Don't wear anything red and gold. Don't reveal you're a Roma supporter." And he obeyed.

He was dressed so as not to attract attention. He could've been a guy with any club at all, but when one of Milan's hardcore supporters went up and asked him for a cigarette, his accent gave him away, and it was like, "Are you a Roma fan, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d?" and he was surrounded. He was kicked and beaten to death. It was a terrible tragedy, and before our match a tifo was held for him.

A tifo is a tribute from the stands, and Antonio De Falchi's name was lit up in yellow and red in the stadium, and that was a nice gesture of course, but it also affected the mood in there. It was a big, tense day. Totti is the big star at Roma. He's played for the club since he was 13 years old. He's like a G.o.d in that city. He's won the World Cup, the Capocannoniere, the Golden Shoe, everything, and even though he wasn't exactly young any more he'd been on top form recently, so of course, there were Totti posters everywhere and Roma signs, but there were AC Milan and Ibra banners as well. We had a lot of fans who'd travelled to watch us and were hoping to be able to celebrate the league t.i.tle, and smoke from all the flares hung over the stands.

The match got underway at a quarter to nine, as usual. It was me and Robinho in front. Ca.s.sano and Pato were on the bench, and we got off to a good start. But in the 14th minute Vuinic broke free. It felt like a goal, like he was going to land it. But Abbiati, our goalkeeper, made a spectacular save. It was pure reflex, and things started to feel tense. Roma had beaten us the last time we'd met at San Siro, and we started working even harder. We were chasing the ball up there, and I had several chances and Robinho shot at the goalpost. Prince Boateng had a brilliant position but we didn't score, and time was ticking away. A 00 draw would be enough, and the clock kept on ticking and finally 90 minutes had pa.s.sed. It should have been over.

Then the b.l.o.o.d.y referee says: five minutes extra! Five minutes, and we kept playing and honestly, I bet there were others besides Galliani who were praying. Seven years without a Scudetto is a long time for a club like Milan, and now it was close, and remember? I'd promised we would win. That was the first thing I'd said when I was introduced at San Siro, and sure, sportsmen say all kinds of things. They'll promise the moon, and nothing comes of it. But some, like Muhammad Ali, kept their promises and I wanted to be one of them. I wanted to talk the talk and walk the walk. I'd come to Milan with my whole winner's mindset and sworn and promised and fought and worked, and now... now the seconds were counting down, 10, 9, 8, 7... and there it was!

The referee blew his whistle, and victory was ours. Everybody rushed onto the pitch and smoke rose from the stadium. People were yelling and singing. It was beautiful and hysterical. It was absolutely fantastic, and Allegri, our manager, got thrown up into the air and Gattuso ran around with a magnum bottle of champagne, spraying everybody. Ca.s.sano was interviewed on TV, and everybody around me was completely nuts. There was a lot of, "Thank you Ibra, you delivered on your promise," but there were some crazy things too.

We were all high on adrenaline, and Ca.s.sano was a cool guy. Maybe he needed a kick. I walked past him and the TV reporter and brought my foot up against Ca.s.sano's head not hard, of course, but not really gentle either, and the guy flinched.

"What's he doing?" the reporter asked.

"He's crazy."

"Seems that way!"

"But a player who helps us to win the league trophy can do whatever he wants," Ca.s.sano said, laughing.

But he was in pain. He went round with an ice pack on his head afterwards. There was a bit of roughhousing maybe, and then the party started. I didn't end up asleep in the bath that night. But it was pretty wild, and honestly, when I stopped to think about it, it was big. I'd been in Italy six years and had won the Scudetto every year. Has anybody else done anything like it? I doubt it, and we didn't just win the league t.i.tle either. We brought home the Supercup, the match between the league champion and the cup champion. We went to China. There was hysteria around me out there as well, and I scored and was named man of the match and got my 18th t.i.tle trophy my eighteenth and I was happy, I really was.

But something had also happened to me. Football was no longer everything. I had my family, and I'd said no to the Swedish national side. I liked Lars Lagerbck. But I hadn't forgotten that business from Gothenburg. I have a long memory, and I wanted more time with Helena and the boys. So I didn't play for Sweden for a while, but still, it came up during that last summer at Bara when everything was hard and I felt like that annoying, different guy from the council estate again, the one who didn't really fit in.

That summer many of my teammates from Barcelona played in the World Cup and won the tournament, and I was feeling more and more like, I miss that, not that I wanted to be in the national side. It took up too much time. I was hardly ever at home with the kids. I was missing out on so much. But around that time, Lars Lagerbck quit. Erik Hamren became the new coach for the Swedish team. He rang me up.

"Hi. I'm the new coach."

"I've gotta say straight off," I said, "I have no plans to come back."

"Huh?"

"I don't know what people have told you. You might have got some false hopes, but I'm not playing."

"s.h.i.t, Zlatan. You're pulling the rug out from under me. I had no idea about that." But he was a stubborn b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I like stubborn b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. He kept on talking. It's gonna be awesome. It'll be great, all that stuff, and I invited him over to our house in Malm and I sensed straight away, this guy is cool. We hit it off. He was no regular Swedish coach. He was willing to cross some boundaries, and those guys are always the best. I don't believe in sticklers for rules, you know that. Sometimes you've got to break the rules. That's how you make progress. I mean, what happened to the guys in the Malm FF youth squad who always behaved? Are there any books written about them?

I said yes in the end and we agreed, he'd make me captain and I'd be a leader in the national side as well. I liked that. I even liked the fact that I was the one who'd be taking the c.r.a.p in the media if we lost. It got me buzzing, and when we met the lads in the team, I looked at them. They were thinking, what the h.e.l.l is this? Normally a handful of fans turn up to check out our training sessions. Now there were 6,000 for one little team session in Malm, and I said very calmly: "Welcome to my world!"

It's always something special to come to Malm. Sure, I'm there pretty often. Malm is our home. But we usually stick around at home. It's something else to play there. That's when the memories come back. The summer after the Scudetto and the Supercup victory, Malm FF and AC Milan were going to play a friendly. The negotiations between the clubs and the sponsors had gone on for a long time, but when the tickets went on sale people came streaming to the stadium. It was raining, I heard. People stood in long queues with their umbrellas, and the tickets sold out in 20 minutes. The demand was insane, and queues snaked back and forth all the way back to Pildamm Park.

I've said a lot of rubbish about Malm FF over the years. I haven't forgotten what Ha.s.se Borg and Bengt Madsen did, but I love the club too, and I'll never forget when we arrived in Malm that day. The whole city embraced me. It felt like a carnival. Everything was chaotic, with streets cordoned off and hysteria and crowds of people. People jumped up and down, waved and shouted when they saw me. A lot of them had stood there for hours just to get a glimpse of me. All of Malm was having a party. Everybody was waiting for Zlatan, and I've gone into a lot of roaring stadiums. But this was special: it was the past and the present all at once.

It was my life all over again, and the entire stadium was singing and screaming my name. There's a scene in Bldrar, that old doc.u.mentary, where I'm sitting on a train, just talking to n.o.body in particular.

"There's one thing I've decided," I say. "I'm gonna have a purple Diablo, a car, Diablo, that's a Lamborghini. And it'll say 'TOYS' in English on the number plate."

It was kind of childish. I was young. I was eighteen, and an awesome car was the coolest thing a kid like me could imagine, and the world was my oyster. But those words got repeated everywhere: Have you heard what that whipper-snapper Zlatan said? A purple Diablo! That was a long time ago. It was far away, but still near somehow, and that night in the stadium in Malm, the fans unrolled a gigantic banner across the front of the whole stand and I stared at it, and it took a second. Then I twigged. It was a drawing of me, next to that car with the TOYS number plate.

'Zlatan, come home. We'll sort out the dream car,' it said.

That touched my heart, or as one of my friends once put it: the whole thing is a fairy tale. It's a journey from the council estate to a dream. Not long ago somebody sent me a picture, a photo of the Annelund bridge. That bridge is just outside Rosengrd, and somebody had put a sign on it: You can take a guy out of Rosengrd but you can never take Rosengrd out of the guy, it said, signed Zlatan.

I hadn't known anything about it. That was news to me. I was injured at the time. I'd sprained my foot and I went home to Malm for a few days for some physiotherapy. I had a physio guy from Milan with me, and one afternoon we headed out to the bridge to check out that quote. It was a strange feeling. It was summer and the weather was warm, and I got out of the car and checked out the sign and sensed something really happening in me. That place was special.

My dad had been mugged and got a punctured lung under that bridge. Not far away is the tunnel where I used to run home in the dark, terrified, to Mum's place in Cronmans Vg, using the lampposts to guide me. This was the neighbourhood of my childhood. These were the streets where everything had started, and I felt how can I put it? Big and small at the same time!

I was the hero who returned. I was the football star, but also the frightened kid in the tunnel again, the one who thought he'd make it if he just ran fast enough. I was everything all at once, and I'm telling you, a hundred memories came flooding back.

I remembered Dad in his headphones and his workman's dungarees, and the empty fridge and the beer cans, but also how he carried my bed on his back, mile after mile, and watched over me in hospital. I remembered Mum's face when she came home from her cleaning jobs, and her hug when we headed off to the World Cup in j.a.pan. I remembered my first football boots, the ones I'd bought for 59.90 kronor in the discount supermarket next to the tomatoes and the vegetables, and I remembered my dreams of becoming the most all-round footballer I could, and I thought: I made that dream come true, and it wouldn't have happened without all the great players and coaches I'd played with and I felt grateful. There was Rosengrd. There was the tunnel. In the distance I heard a train going over the bridge. Somebody was pointing at me.

A woman in a headscarf came up and wanted to have her picture taken with me, and I smiled at her. People started to gather round me. It was a fairy tale, and I was Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

CAREER TIMELINE.

1999.

Taken up into Malm FF's first squad.

Allsvenskan league debut, scores one goal.

Malm FF relegated to Superettan.

20002001.

Scores 12 goals for Malm FF in the Superettan.

Debut with Swedish national side.

Purchased by Ajax.

Returns to Allsvenskan with Malm FF, scores three goals.

20012002.

Debut with Ajax, scores six goals in league.

Scores two goals in UEFA Cup.

Scores one goal in Dutch Cup.

Wins league t.i.tle with Ajax.

Wins Dutch Cup with Ajax.

Second round of World Cup.

20022003 Wins Supercup with Ajax.

Scores 13 goals for Ajax in league.

Scores five goals in Champions League.

Scores three goals in Dutch Cup.

20032004 Scores 13 goals for Ajax in league.

Scores one goal in Champions League qualifier.

Scores one goal in Champions League.

Wins league t.i.tle with Ajax.

Euro 2004 quarter-final.

20042005 Scores three goals for Ajax in league.

Scores goal of the year, as chosen by Eurosport viewers.

Sold to Juventus.

Scores 16 goals for Juventus in league.

Wins Scudetto with Juventus.

Voted player of the year at Juventus.

Voted best foreign player in Italian league.

Voted best forward in Sweden.

Wins Swedish Guldbollen award.

20052006 Scores seven goals for Juventus in league.

Scores three goals in Champions League.

Wins Scudetto with Juventus.

Second round of World Cup.

20062007 Sold to Inter Milan.

Wins Supercup with Inter.

Scores 15 goals for Inter in league.

Wins Scudetto with Inter.

Voted best forward in Sweden.

Wins Swedish Guldbollen award.

20072008 Scores 17 goals for Inter Milan in league.

Scores five goals in Champions League.

Wins Scudetto with Inter.

Selected for UEFA team.

Voted best foreign player in Italian league.

Voted player of the year in Italian league.

Voted male sports personality of the year in Sweden.