I Am Zlatan Part 4

I hadn't had any bad run-ins with the press yet. I was basically myself around journalists and would tell them what kind of cars I wanted and which video games I played, and I said stuff like, "There's only one Zlatan" and "Zlatan is Zlatan" not the most modest things, and I guess I was viewed as something totally new. It wasn't just the usual, "the ball is round", type of thing.

It was more free, from the heart. I just talked, pretty much like I did at home, and even Ha.s.se admitted that I was popular and there were football scouts hiding in the bushes. "But you've got to keep a cool head," he said.

Later on, I found out that he got about a phone call a day from agents back then. I was a hot property, and I a.s.sume he already realised that I could be the saviour of the club's finances. I was his pot of gold, as the newspapers would write later on, and one day he came up to me and asked, "What do you say we go on a little trip?"

"Sure, sounds good!"

It would be a little tour, he explained, around various clubs that were interested in purchasing me. I felt like, s.h.i.t, it's really starting to happen.

6.

IN A WAY, I COULDN'T KEEP UP. Things had happened too fast. Only recently, I'd been a nuisance in the junior squad. Now everything was buzzing around me, and Ha.s.se Borg and I went out to a.r.s.enal's training facility in St Albans, and you can just imagine.

It was hallowed ground, and I saw Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp out on the pitch. But the really awesome thing was that I was going to meet a.r.s.ene Wenger. Wenger hadn't been with the club for very long at that point. He was the first non-Englishman who'd been appointed as manager at a.r.s.enal, and the newspapers had carried headlines like, 'a.r.s.ene Who?' Like, who the h.e.l.l is a.r.s.ene Wenger? But straight away in his second season, he took home the double both the league t.i.tle and the FA Cup and was hugely popular, and I felt like a little boy when we stepped into his office.

It was me, Ha.s.se Borg and an agent whose name I've forgotten, and I shivered a bit under Wenger's gaze. It was like he was trying to see right through me, or size me up. He's a bloke who draws up psychological profiles of his players are they emotionally stable, and stuff like that. He is thorough, like all great coaches, and I didn't say much at first.

I just sat in silence and was bashful, but after a while I lost my patience. Something about Wenger set me off. He would leap up every so often to check who was outside his window. It seemed like he wanted to keep an eye on everything, and he kept going on about one thing all the time.

"You can have a trial with us," he said. "You can give it a try. You can test things out." No matter how much I wanted to behave, those words set me off. I wanted to show him what I could do.

"Give me a pair of boots. I'll have a trial. I'll do it right now," I said. Then Ha.s.se Borg interrupted me, saying, "Stop, stop, we'll sort this out, you're not going to have a trial, not at all," and of course, I understood what he was getting at: either you're interested, or you're not. Having a trial means selling yourself short. It puts you in a weak position, so we said no: "We're sorry, Mr Wenger, but we are not interested," and of course there was a great deal of talk about that.

But I'm sure it was the right decision, and we carried on to Monte Carlo, where Monaco were keen, but we said no to them as well, and to Verona, a sister club of Roma in Italy, and returned home. It had been an amazing trip, that's for sure. But nothing concrete came out of it, and I suppose that wasn't the intention anyway. I was mainly supposed to understand better how things worked down there on the Continent, and back in Malm it was winter, freezing cold. I came down with flu.

I'd been selected for the national Under-21 side. But I was forced to cancel my debut, and a number of scouts had to go home disappointed. The scouts were on my trail everywhere, though I wasn't really aware of it. There was just one guy I knew a little. He was a Dane by the name of John Steen Olsen. He'd been checking me out for Ajax for so long I started to say h.e.l.lo to him. But I didn't make a big deal of it. He was just a part of the whole circus, and I didn't know what was just talk and what was really serious. Of course, the whole thing felt more real after our trip. But I still couldn't quite believe it. I took it one day at a time, and I remember that I was looking forward to heading to training camp with Malm FF.

We were going to La Manga. It was early March, and my body felt light. The sun was shining. La Manga is a little strip of land off the south-eastern coast of Spain, a holiday resort with long sandy beaches and bars. On the mainland nearby there's a sports facility where the big-name clubs train in the pre-season. I shared a room with Gudmundur Mete from Iceland. We'd moved up together since the boys' team, and neither of us had been to a camp like this before. We didn't know any of the rules, and when we arrived late for dinner the first night we got fined. We laughed about it for the most part, and the following morning we headed over to the training session. It was no big deal.

But I noticed a familiar figure alongside the pitch. I gave a start: it was John Steen Olsen. Is he here as well? I called over, "Hi there!" Nothing more. I refused to get worked up. Those sorts were everywhere. I'd got used to them. But the following day there was another bloke there. I found out he was the chief scout from Ajax, and Ha.s.se Borg seemed really stressed out.

"Things are starting to happen now! Things are starting to happen now!" he said, to which I replied, "Okay, that's good!"

I just carried on playing. But it wasn't exactly easy. Suddenly there were three guys from Ajax there. The a.s.sistant coach had also come, and I heard from Ha.s.se Borg that more were on their way. It was nothing short of an invasion, and the next day we were going to face Moss, a Norwegian side, in a friendly match. Their head coach, Co Adriaanse, was also there, along with Leo Beenhakker, the sporting director.

I didn't know anything about Beenhakker then. I knew nothing about European football bosses in those days. But I could see straight away that that bloke was a big shot. He wore a hat in the sun and stood on the sidelines, smoking a fat cigar. He had curly white hair and, like, glinting eyes. People have likened him to the mad professor guy in Back to the Future, but if anything, Beenhakker is a harder version of him. Beenhakker radiated power and cool. He looked a little like a mafioso, and I like that. That's the style I grew up with, and it didn't surprise me at all that Beenhakker had coached Real Madrid, winning the league and the Cup with them. It was clear that he was the dominant figure and the decision-maker, and people said he was able to see the potential in young players like n.o.body else, and I thought: wow, this is the real thing! But of course, there was a lot I didn't realise. Beenhakker had made repeated attempts to get Ha.s.se Borg to name a price for me. Ha.s.se refused. He didn't want to get locked into a figure.

"The lad's not for sale," he said, and that was definitely smart. But it was a high-stakes game.

Beenhakker informed him, "If I don't get a price, I won't come to La Manga!"

"That's your problem. Just forget about it in that case," Ha.s.se Borg replied, or at least that's what he claims, and Beenhakker relented.

He flew to Spain, and the first thing he would see was our match against Moss. I have no recollection of him on the sidelines afterwards. I only saw John Steen Olsen and the coach, Co Adriaanse, over by the opposing goal. But apparently Beenhakker had climbed up onto a shed beyond the goal line to get a better view, and of course, he must have been prepared to be disappointed. It wouldn't have been the first time he had travelled a long way to see a talent that didn't live up to expectations, and it wasn't an important match either. There was no reason for anyone to make much of an effort, and maybe it would all just turn out to be a wild goose chase. No one knew. The Ajax blokes were chatting amongst themselves, and I felt a little nervous. I couldn't keep still.

Early on in the first half I got a pa.s.s from the right. I was just outside the penalty area, and we were in our pale blue kit. The clock read 15:37 if you go by the flickering video recording that's up on YouTube. It was warm, but there was a good breeze blowing in from the coast, and it didn't look like a critical situation. The play was cautious. But I saw a gap a chance. It was one of those images that just pop into my head, one of those flashbulb moments that whizz into your thoughts, which I've never been able to explain properly. Football isn't something you plan in advance. Football just happens, and as soon as I got the ball I chipped it over a defender, one of those little lobs that you instantly feel is perfect, and then I just went for it. I accelerated past two defenders and reached the ball a few metres inside the penalty area, ideally positioned for a backheel.

I backheeled it over another defender, ran up and shot with my left foot on the volley, and for a moment you're left wondering, you have time to think even though everything happens in under a tenth of a second: Will it go in? Will it miss? But no, it just sailed in. That was one of the most beautiful goals I'd scored, and I ran out across the pitch, screaming with my arms stretched wide. The journalists who were there were convinced I was shouting, "Zlatan, Zlatan!" But come on, why would I be shouting my own name? I was yelling, "Showtime, showtime!"

That was a 'showtime' goal, and I can just imagine what Beenhakker was thinking. I bet he was bowled over. He'd probably never seen anything like it. But later on I found out that it also made him worried. He'd found what he was looking for: a big player who was dangerous around the goaland technical, who'd just scored an epic goal as if to order. But he was smart enough to realise that with this performance my value had rocketed, and if any other big clubs had spies around the pitch there would be a crazy bidding war, so Leo Beenhakker resolved to act immediately. He jumped down from the roof of the shed and went to find Ha.s.se Borg.

"I want to meet that guy right now," he said because you know, in the football world it's never just about the player; it's about the person as well. It's no good if someone's a brilliant player if he's got the wrong att.i.tude. You're buying the whole package.

"I don't know if that's possible," said Ha.s.se Borg.

"What do you mean, not possible?"

"We might not have time. We've got loads of activities and things like that!"

Beenhakker was fuming, because of course he knew what was going on.

There were no b.l.o.o.d.y activities. Ha.s.se Borg must have been creaming himself. The bloke had just been handed every trump card in the deck, and now he wanted to seem difficult and play out every one of his tricks.

"Eh? What are you talking about? He's a young kid. You're at your training camp. Of course there's time."

"Maybe just a little while, then," said Ha.s.se Borg, or something like that, and so they agreed that we would meet at the Ajax crew's hotel, which was some distance away.

We drove there. In the car, Ha.s.se Borg stressed how important it was for me to convey a good, positive att.i.tude. But I was relaxed. Ajax might have wanted to buy me and sure, that was definitely big, and some other time I probably would have been nervous.

I wasn't used to big shots from abroad in those days, much less big business deals. But after a goal like that, you're king of the world. It was easy to turn on the charm. Ha.s.se Borg and I went into their hotel and shook hands with the whole crew, went "How do you do" and talked about this and that, and I smiled and said I was really committed to football and I knew it was hard work, all that kind of thing. It was a little theatre performance where everybody was displaying their goodwill. But there were definitely serious and suspicious undertones. Everybody was checking me out, thinking: who is he, really? The main thing I remember is Leo Beenhakker. He leaned forward and said, "If you f.u.c.k with me I'll f.u.c.k you two times back," and well, that made an impression on me.

Beenhakker was speaking my language, and he had a glint in his eye. But clearly, he and his guys had done their homework. They probably knew everything about me, even that episode in Industrigatan. Not that it crossed my mind then. But his words could be interpreted as a warning, right, and I recall that we went back to our hotel very shortly afterwards, and I remember I was barely able to sit still.

There's one game on the pitch.

There's another on the transfer market, and I like them both, and I know quite a few tricks. I know when to keep my mouth shut and when to do battle. But I've learnt the hard way. In the beginning, I knew nothing. I was just a kid who wanted to play football, and after that meeting in La Manga I didn't hear a single word about Ajax, not for a while.

I went home, and in those days I was driving around in a convertible Merc not the one I'd ordered, but a loaner I was given while I was waiting for the actual one, and I don't think I was heading anywhere in particular. I was just cruising round, feeling like a pretty cool dude, and there was a miniature football in the back seat in case I felt like practising some moves. In other words, it was a completely ordinary day in Malm.

There were still a few weeks to go until the Allsvenskan season opener, and I was going to play with the Under-21 national side in Bors, but otherwise things were quiet. I just went to training sessions and stuff, and hung out with my mates and played video games. Then the phone rang. It was Ha.s.se Borg. Nothing strange about that. We phoned each other often. But this time he sounded different.

"Are you busy?" he asked, and I couldn't exactly say that I was.

"But are you ready? Are you good to go?"

"Sure. What's up?"

"They're here now."

"Who are?"

"Ajax. Come to the St Jrgen Hotel. We're waiting for you," he said, and sure, naturally, I drove there.

Jag parked outside the hotel, and of course my heart was pounding. I realised things were happening now, and I had told Ha.s.se Borg that I wanted to be sold for a record sum. I wanted to go down in history. There was a Swedish player who had been signed by a.r.s.enal for 40 million kronor, which was a lot in those days, and a Norwegian by the name of John Carew who Valencia had paid 70 million kronor for. That was a record in Scandinavia, and I was hoping to beat it. But my G.o.d, I was nineteen years old.

It wasn't easy to be tough when the chips were really down and remember, we wore tracksuits on the council estate. Sure, I'd tried out different looks when I was at Borgarskolan. But now I was back in Nike gear again and had a little cap on, and it was all wrong. When I walked into the St Jrgen I was greeted by John Steen Olsen, and of course, I realised that everything was top secret. Ajax is a corporation listed on the stock exchange, and this would be insider information if anything got out. But just then I caught sight of Cecilia Persson, and stopped short. What was Cecilia doing there? I wasn't expecting to b.u.mp into people from Rosengrd at the St Jrgen Hotel. It was a different world. It was a long way from the council estate. But there she was.

She and I had grown up in the same block of flats; she was the daughter of my mum's best friend. But suddenly I remembered that she worked in the hotel as a cleaner. She was a cleaner just like Mum, and now she was eyeing me suspiciously, like: what's Zlatan doing here with these guys? I shushed her, like, don't say anything! I went up in the lift and entered a conference room, and there were a load of suits standing there: Beenhakker, his finance guy, and then Ha.s.se Borg of course and I realised straight away that there was something dodgy about the atmosphere in there.

Ha.s.se was really nervous and on edge, he was full of adrenaline, but of course he was playing it cool: "Hi there, lad! You understand we can't say a word about this yet. But do you want to go to Ajax? They want you." Even though I'd had my suspicions, it blew me away.

"Definitely!" I replied, "Ajax is a great training ground." Then everybody nodded, and there was lots of smiling and stuff.

But even so, there was still something weird in there, and I shook people's hands and was told that I would now negotiate my personal contract, and for some reason Beenhakker and his guys left at that point, leaving me on my own with Ha.s.se Borg. What the h.e.l.l was going on with Ha.s.se? He had a huge wad of snus tucked inside his lip, and he showed me a stack of papers.

"Have a look at this. This is what I've drawn up for you," he said, and I looked down at the papers. It said a hundred and sixty thousand kronor a month, which was definitely a lot of money it was like, wow, am I gonna get that? But I had no clue whether it was a good rate on the market, and I said so.

"Is that good?"

"d.a.m.n right it's good," said Ha.s.se. "It's four times what you're earning now," and I thought, okay, I'm sure he's right, I guess it is a lot of money, and I could sense how tense he was.

"Go for it," I said.

"Brilliant, Zlatan! Congratulations!" Then he went out, saying he was going to negotiate a little, and when he came back in he was beaming with pride. It was like he'd just closed the greatest deal in the world.

"They'll stump up for your new Mercedes as well, they'll pay for it," he added. I thought that was awesome too, and replied, "Wow, cool."

But I still knew nothing else about the deal, didn't even consider that the part about the car was just small potatoes to them because really, do you think I was prepared for those negotiations?

Was I, h.e.l.l. I didn't know a thing about what football players earned or what gets deducted in tax in the Netherlands, and I really didn't have anyone who was speaking for me or representing my interests. I was nineteen years old and came from Rosengrd. I knew nothing about the world. I had about as much of a clue as Cecilia out there, and as you know, I thought Ha.s.se Borg was my friend, sort of like my second dad. I never realised that he had only one thing on his mind: earning money for the club, and in fact, it was only much later that I even grasped what that pumped-up vibe in the room was all about. But of course, the men in suits were still in the middle of their negotiations.

They hadn't decided on a price for me yet, and the whole reason they called me in was because it's obviously easier to agree a transfer if you sign the player and set his salary first, because then you know what sort of money you're talking about, and if you're so slick that you make sure the bloke gets paid less than anybody else in the whole team then it's easier to get a fat sum for him. So in short, it was a strategic game and I was sacrificed. But I had no idea then. I just strolled out into the foyer and even gave a little shout of joy or something, and I think I was really good at keeping my mouth shut. The only person I told was my dad, and he was smart enough to have his doubts about the whole thing. He just didn't trust people. But as for me, I just let it happen, and the following day I went up to Bors to play with the Under-21 national side against Macedonia. It was a qualifying match for the UEFA European Championship and my debut with the Swedish youth squad, and it should have been a major thing. But my mind was obviously on other things, and I remember I met with Ha.s.se Borg and Leo Beenhakker again and signed the contract. They had finished their negotiations by then.

But we still had to keep it secret until two o'clock that afternoon when the news would be announced in the Netherlands, and I found out that a whole load of agents from abroad had come to town to check me out. But they'd come too late. I was set for Ajax. I was walking on air, and I asked Ha.s.se Borg, "How much was I sold for?" and the answer I'll never forget it.

He had to repeat it. It was like I couldn't comprehend it, and maybe he gave the figure in guilders first, and I wasn't familiar with that currency. But then I realised how much it was, and I just completely lost it.

All right, I had been hoping for a record sum. I'd wanted to go for more than John Carew, but it was something else to see it written down in black and white. It was mind-boggling. Eighty-five f.u.c.king million kronor! But above all, no Swede, no Scandinavian, not even Henke Larsson, not even John Carew, had been sold for anywhere near that much, and of course I realised it would get reported all over. I wasn't unfamiliar with publicity.

But even so, when I bought the papers the following day it was completely insane. It was a Zlatan orgy in the press. It was the guy with the golden shorts. It was Zlatan the Incredible. It was Zlatan this and Zlatan that, and I read and savoured it, and I remembered when me and Chippen and Kennedy Bakirciogl from the national youth squad went out for something to eat in Bors. We were sitting there in a cafe having a soft drink and a pastry, when suddenly some girls around our age came up, and one of them said, sort of shy, "Are you the eighty-five million kronor guy?" I mean, what can you say to something like that?

"Yep," I said, "that's me." My mobile was ringing constantly.

People were sucking up to me and congratulating me and generally being envious all except one, that is: Mum. She was absolutely beside herself. "My G.o.d, Zlatan, what's happened?" she wailed. "Have you been abducted? Have you gone and died?" She'd seen me on TV and hadn't really caught what they were saying, and of course what normally happens if you're from Rosengrd and end up in the media, it usually means bad news.

"It's all right, Mum. I've just been sold to Ajax," I told her, and then she got angry instead. "Why didn't you say anything? Why do we have to find out about these things from the TV?"

But she calmed down I find it really touching when I think about it and the next day John Steen Olsen and I headed down to the Netherlands, and I was wearing that pink sweater and the brown leather jacket, which were the coolest clothes I owned, and I gave a press conference in Amsterdam. There was a ma.s.sive commotion with photographers and journalists sitting and lying all over the place, and I was beaming. I looked down. I was happy and uncertain. I was big and small at the same time, and I tasted champagne for the first time in my life and made a face, like: what kind of s.h.i.t is this? Beenhakker gave me the number 9 shirt, which had been worn by van Basten.

It was almost too much, and in the midst of all this some guys were making a doc.u.mentary about me and Malm FF ent.i.tled Bldrar ('Blue Maniacs'), and they came along to Amsterdam and filmed me with the club's sponsor in a Mitsubishi car showroom, and I'm walking round in my brown leather jacket and checking out all the cars.

"It's weird to just come in here and pick one. But I guess you get used to it," I say, and then grin.

It was that first, amazing feeling that anything was possible. It was a fairy tale, it really was, spring was in the air and I went out to the Ajax home ground and stood there in the empty stand, thinking, with a lollipop in my mouth, and all the while the journalists were getting more and more out of control. They ran the story about the ghetto kid who got the chance to live his dream, and the next day they wrote about how Zlatan had got a taste for life as a pro and a life of luxury, and this was when the Allsvenskan season was about to start. Ha.s.se Borg had made a deal that I would stay at Malm FF for another six months, so I went straight back to the training ground from Amsterdam. It was a little chilly that day, I remember.

I'd just had a haircut and I was happy and hadn't seen my teammates in a while. But now they were all just sat there in the locker room with newspapers on their laps, reading about me and my 'life of luxury'. There's a scene in the film. I stride in, laughing, take off my jacket and give a little shout of joy, a wild little 'yee-ha' and they look up. I almost feel sorry for them.

They all look miserable. Of course, they're all green with envy, and worst of all is Ha.s.se Mattisson, the one who fought with me at Gunnilse. He looks totally destroyed, but still, he's a sound bloke. He's the team captain and he means well. He makes an attempt: "I've gotta say, congratulations. That's brilliant! Might as well seize the chance," he says, but he's fooling no one least of all the camera.

The camera pans from his sad eyes to me, and I'm sitting there on the bench beaming, happy as a little kid, and maybe, I dunno, I might have been a little manic during those days. Stuff had to be happening all the time. I wanted action, more action. Like, keep the drama and the show going, and that's why I did a whole load of stupid stuff. I got blond streaks in my hair, and I got engaged, not that it was such a dumb thing to get engaged to Mia. She was a nice girl, she was studying web design and she was blonde and pretty, and she was going places. We'd met in Cyprus the previous summer, where she was working in some bar, and we exchanged phone numbers and started hanging out together in Sweden and having fun together. But the engagement was kind of a whirlwind thing, and because I wasn't experienced in dealing with the media yet, I told Rune Smith from the Kvllsposten tabloid about it. That's the one where he asked, "What did she get for an engagement present?"

"Whaddaya mean, present? She got Zlatan."

She got Zlatan!

It was the kind of remark that just popped out, that sounded c.o.c.ky, totally in line with my media image, and that one still gets dredged up all the time. The only thing was, a few weeks later, Mia got nothing. I broke off the engagement because a mate had convinced me that you have to get married within a year, and I was just generally doing a lot of impulsive things. I was on fast-forward. There was too much happening around me. Our Allsvenskan season opener was approaching, and as you can imagine, that was where I was supposed to show I was worth those eighty-five million kronor. The previous day Anders Svensson and Kim Kllstrm had scored two goals in their Allsvenskan season openers, and people were saying I wouldn't be able to cope with my new star status. Maybe I was just an overhyped teenager. As often happened in those years, they were saying that I'd just been built up by the media, and I felt I had to perform. It was a lot to deal with, and I remember that Malm Stadium was reaching boiling point. It was the ninth of April, 2001.

I had my blue Merc convertible and was as proud of it as anything. But when Rune Smith interviewed me before the match, I didn't want to be photographed with it. I didn't want to seem too c.o.c.ky. It felt like it would just come back and bite me on the a.r.s.e, and I was hearing some concerns: the pressure would get too big, and stuff, and that wasn't all that easy to deal with. I was nineteen, and everything had happened so fast. Still, I got a buzz from it. Things were on another level now. But that feeling of wanting to get back at everybody who hadn't believed in me and circulated pet.i.tions and everything else was something I'd had for a long time. I'd been driven by revenge and rage ever since I started playing, and now there were tons of expectations and concerns hanging in the air. We were going to be playing AIK. That was no easy opener.

The last time we'd played them we were humiliated and got relegated to the second division. Now, ahead of this season, many people saw AIK as one of the favourites to win the Allsvenskan League, and really, what were we? We'd just come out of the Superettan without even leading the league. Even so, people thought the pressure was on us, and they were saying it was mainly down to me, the eighty-five million kronor kid. The stands were packed at Malm Stadium, nearly 20,000 people were there, and as I ran out through the long tunnel with the blue floor towards the pitch I could hear the roar outside. This was big, I realised, this was our return to the Allsvenskan, and yet it was almost incomprehensible.

There was a sea of banners and placards in there, and as we lined up, they were shouting something I couldn't hear at first. It was 'We love Malm,' and my name as well. It was like a giant chorus, and the banners said things like, 'Good luck Zlatan' and I just stood there on the pitch and soaked everything in with my hand to my ear, like, give me more, give me more. To be honest, all the doubters were right about one thing at least. The stage was set for a flop. It was too much.

The starting whistle went at a quarter to nine, and the roar got even louder. In those days the main thing wasn't scoring goals. It was the show, the artistry, everything I'd been practising over and over again, and early on I forged a tunnel towards an AIK defender and managed a few dribbles. Then I faded out of the action and AIK took command of the match with one chance after another, and for a long time it didn't look good for us. Maybe I wanted too much. That was something I was aware of even then. If you want too much, it's easy to get stuck.

But I tried to ease up, and in the thirtieth minute I got the ball outside the penalty area off Peter Srensen. It didn't feel like a brilliant chance at first. But I feinted. I backheeled the ball and advanced, and shot a broadside into the goal and my G.o.d, it hit me like a punch here comes the explosion, now it's happening, and I went down on my knees in a goal celebration as the entire stadium roared, 'Zlatan, Zlatan, SuperZlatan' and all kinds of stuff. After that it was as if I was being carried aloft.

I did one fancy move after another, and in the ninth minute of the second half I got another nice ball from Srensen. I was on the right side and rushed down towards the goal line. It didn't look suitable for making a shot, not at all, and everybody was thinking, he'll make an a.s.sist, he'll pa.s.s it. But I made a shot at goal. From that impossible angle, I got the ball in and the spectators went absolutely nuts. I walked across the pitch really slowly with my arms stretched wide, and that face I made! That's power. That's: Here I am, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who just complained and tried to get me to give up football.

It was revenge, it was pride, and I imagine everybody who'd thought the eighty-five million kronor was too high a price was eating their words now, and I'll never forget the journalists afterwards. The atmosphere was electric, and one of them said: "If I say the names Anders Svensson and Kim Kllstrm, what do you have to say?"

"I say Zlatan, Zlatan," and people laughed and I stepped out into the spring evening, and there was my Mercedes convertible, and it was amazing.

But it took me a long time to reach my car. There were kids everywhere who wanted my autograph, so I spent ages doing that n.o.body should be left out, that was part of my philosophy. I had to give something back, and only afterwards did I climb into my new car and blast out of there while the fans screamed and waved their autograph books, and that would have been plenty. But it wasn't over yet. That was just the beginning, and the next day the newspapers came out, and what do you think? Did they write anything?

They wrote b.l.o.o.d.y reams.

Back when we crashed out of the Allsvenskan, apparently I'd said, "I want people to forget me. n.o.body should know I exist. Then when we're back, I'll strike down on the pitch like a bolt of lightning," and the papers dug up that quote.

I became the bolt of lightning that struck. I was the most amazing thing and people even started talking about Zlatan Fever in Sweden. I was everywhere, in every branch of the media, and people were saying it wasn't just young kids and teenagers reading. It was little old ladies at the post office, it was old men at the off-licence, and I heard jokes like, "Alright, how are things? How you doing?" "I think I've caught Zlatan Fever." I was walking on air. It was absolutely incredible. Some guys even recorded a song that swept the nation. It was played everywhere. People had it as the ringtone on their phones: Oh hiya, Zlatan and me, we're from the same town, they sang, and I mean, how do you deal with something like that? They're singing about you. But sure, there was another side to it all as well, and I saw that in our third fixture in the Allsvenskan. It was the twenty-first of April. It was in Stockholm, where we were away to Djurgrden.

Djurgrden were the team that had been relegated to the Superettan along with us and who also made it back up at the same time Djurgrden won the league and we finished second, and to be honest, they had really trounced us in the Superettan, first by 20 and then 40, so in that sense they definitely had the psychological advantage. But still, we'd beaten both AIK and Elfsborg 20 in our first matches, and above all, Malm FF had me. Everybody was going, Zlatan, Zlatan I was hotter than volcanic lava, and people were saying that Lars Lagerbck, the coach of the Swedish national team, was sitting in the stands to observe me.

But of course, even more people were worked up now: what the h.e.l.l's so special about that guy? One of the tabloids got hold of Djurgrden's entire defending line-up. They were three burly blokes, I remember, standing with their arms folded in the centre spread underneath the headline: 'We're the ones planning to put a stop to Zlatan the over-hyped diva', and I guess I was expecting a really nasty atmosphere on the pitch. There were reputations at stake, so of course there was going to be a lot of trash-talking, but a shiver still went over me when I came on at Stockholm Stadium.

The Djurgrden fans were seething with hatred, or if it wasn't hatred, at least it was the worst mindgames I've ever experienced: "We hate Zlatan, we hate Zlatan!" It was thundering all round me. The entire arena was baiting me, and I heard a bunch of other chants, loads of nasty s.h.i.t about me and my mum.

I'd never experienced anything like it, and okay, I could understand it in a way. The fans couldn't run down and play ball themselves, so what could they do? They targeted the best player from the opposing side, tried to break me, I suppose it's only natural. That's how it is in football. But this crossed the line, and I was furious. I'd show them, and in a way I played more against the spectators than against the actual team. But just like in the match against AIK, it took a while before I got into the game.

I was tightly marked. I had those leeches from the newspaper on me, and Djurgrden dominated for the first twenty minutes. We'd just bought in a guy from Nigeria. Peter Ijeh was his name, and he had a reputation as a brilliant goal-scorer. He would lead the league in goal scoring the following year. But at this point he was still in my shadow. Well, who wasn't? In the 21st minute he got a pa.s.s from Daniel Majstorovic, our centre back, who would later become a good friend of mine.