Part 8 (1/2)

I had Maxwell, of course, and a few others in the squad, but not really. There was so much compet.i.tion everywhere and I didn't know who I could trust, especially when it came to agents and transfers. Every single player in the team wanted to move up to the big clubs, and it felt like I needed somebody from the outside. I thought of Thijs.

Thijs Slegers was a journalist. He had interviewed me for Voetbal International, and I'd liked him right away. We'd talked on the phone a bit after that interview. He became something of a sounding board, and even back then he had a good idea of what was what, I think. He knew what I was like and what kind of people I liked. I dialled his number and explained the situation: ”I need to find a new agent. Who would be best for me?”

Thijs is cool. He said, ”Let me think about it!” And, sure, I let him think about it, I didn't want to rush into anything.

”Listen,” he said later. ”There are two agents I can think of. One is the firm that works for Beckham. They're supposed to be terrific, and then there's another guy. But, well ...”

”Well, what?”

”He's a mafioso.”

”Mafioso sounds good,” I said.

”I suspected you would say that.”

”Terrific. Set up a meeting!”

The guy wasn't actually a mafioso. He just looked and acted like one. His name was Mino Raiola, and I'd actually heard of him before. He was Maxwell's agent, and he'd tried to get in touch with me via Maxwell a few months earlier. Because that's the way he works. Mino always goes via intermediaries. He always says, ”If you approach them yourself, you don't have the upper hand. You're standing there with your cap in your hand.” But it hadn't worked too well with me I'd just acted c.o.c.ky, and I told Maxwell: ”If he's got something specific to bring to the table, he can show up, otherwise I'm not interested,” but Mino just sent this message: ”Tell this Zlatan to go and f.u.c.k himself.” Although that had p.i.s.sed me off at the time, I was getting excited now that I found out a little about him. I had grown up with that att.i.tude, go f.u.c.k yourself and stuff. I feel comfortable with that council estate talk, and I suspected that Mino and I had similar backgrounds. Neither of us had been handed anything on a plate. Mino was born in southern Italy, in the province of Salerno. But when he was just a year old, his family moved to the Netherlands and opened a pizzeria in the city of Haarlem. Mino had to clean and wash dishes and help out as a waiter when he was a boy. But he worked his way up. He started looking after the books and that sort of thing.

He started making something of himself even as a teenager. He was involved in thousands of things; he studied law, made deals and learned languages. He also loved football and wanted to become an agent early on. In the Netherlands there used to be a really crazy system where players had to be sold according to a price that was based on their age and a bunch of statistical c.r.a.p, and he went against all that. He challenged the entire Dutch football a.s.sociation, and he didn't start off dealing with small fry. Back in 1993 he sold Bergkamp to Inter, and in 2001 he got Nedvd to Juventus for 41 million euro.

Even so, Mino wasn't all that big, not yet, but he was considered to be on his way up, and he was completely fearless and prepared to pull any number of tricks, and that sounded good. I didn't want to have another nice boy. I wanted to be transferred and get a good contract, and so I decided to make an impression on this Mino. When Thijs set up a meeting for us at the Okura Hotel in Amsterdam, I wore my cool brown leather jacket from Gucci. I had no intention of being the idiot in the tracksuit who gets screwed over again. I put on my gold watch and drove there in my Porsche, and I parked right outside just to be safe.

It was like, here I come, and I went into the Okura, and, well, that hotel! It's right alongside the Amstel Ca.n.a.l and is amazingly elegant and luxurious, and I thought, this is it, I've got to play it cool now, and I went into the sus.h.i.+ restaurant in the hotel. We'd booked a table there, and I didn't really know what sort of person to expect, probably some sort of pinstriped fella with an even bigger gold watch. But who the h.e.l.l turned up? A bloke in jeans and a Nike T-s.h.i.+rt and that belly, like one of the guys in the Sopranos.

Was he supposed to be an agent, that weirdo? And then when we ordered, what do you think they brought us? A few pieces of sus.h.i.+ with avocado and prawns? We got a ma.s.sive spread, enough to feed five people, and he started stuffing himself. But then he started talking, and he was really sharp and to the point. There was no candy-coated c.r.a.p, and I knew immediately that this was going to work, it was sounding great, and I said to myself, I want to work with this guy. We think alike. I was all set to shake hands on a deal.

But do you know what he did, that c.o.c.ky b.a.s.t.a.r.d? He took out four pages of A4 paper he'd printed off the internet. They had a bunch of names and numbers on them, like Christian Vieri, 27 matches, 24 goals. Filippo Inzaghi, 25 matches, 20 goals; David Trezeguet, 24 matches, 20 goals and finally, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, 25 matches, 5 goals.

”You think I'm going to be able to sell you with statistics like these,” he said, and I thought, what is this, some kind of attack?

But I retaliated. ”If I'd scored 20 goals even my mother could have sold me,” and silenced him. He wanted to laugh, I know that now. But he carried on with his game. He didn't want to lose the upper hand.

”You are right. But you...”

Now what? I thought. It felt like there was another attack coming.

”You think you're pretty great, huh?”

”What are you talking about?”

”You think I'm going to be impressed by your watch, your jacket, your Porsche. But I'm not. Not at all. I just think it's ridiculous.”

”All right!”

”Do you want to become the best in the world? Or the one who earns the most and can swan around in this kind of gear?”

”Best in the world!”

”Good! Because if you become the best in the world, you'll get the other stuff, too. But if you're just after the money, you won't end up with anything, you get that?”

”I get it.”

”Think about it, and let me know,” he said, and we concluded the meeting. I left and felt, okay, I'll think about it. I can play it a little cool too and let him wait. But I'd hardly got into my car before I started feeling antsy. I phoned him up.

”Listen, I don't like waiting, I want to start working with you right away.”

He was silent.

”All right,” he said. ”But if you're going to work with me, you have to do what I tell you.”

”Sure, absolutely.”

”You're going to sell your cars. You're going to sell your watches and start training three times as hard. Because your stats are c.r.a.p.”

Your stats are c.r.a.p! I should have told him to go to h.e.l.l. Sell my cars? What did they have to do with him? He was going too far, no doubt about it. But still, he was right, wasn't he? I gave him my Porsche Turbo. Not just to be a good boy, for its own sake. It was just as well I got rid of that car, to be honest. I was just going to kill myself in it. But things didn't stop there.

I started driving around in the club's lame little Fiat Stilo, and I put away my gold watch. I put on an ugly Nike watch instead, and went round in tracksuits again. Things were going to be tough now, and I trained for all I was worth. I pushed myself to the limit, and it struck me that all that stuff was true. I had been too pleased with myself, thinking I was all that. But it was the wrong att.i.tude.

It was true that I hadn't scored enough goals and I'd been too lazy. I hadn't been motivated enough. I was realising that even more, and began to give everything I had in training and matches. But it's true, it isn't easy to change overnight. You start off at full tilt, then you can't be bothered. Fortunately I didn't have a chance to slack off. Mino was on me like a leech.

”You like it when people tell you you're the best, don't you?”

”Yeah, maybe.”

”But that's not true. You're not the best. You're s.h.i.+t. You're nothing. You've got to work harder.”

”You're the one who's s.h.i.+t. All you do is nag. You should train yourself.”

”Go f.u.c.k yourself.”

”f.u.c.k you.”

Things often got aggressive between us, or rather, it seemed aggressive. But that's how we were brought up, and of course I got it, that whole att.i.tude, 'you're nothing' and all that, was just his way of getting me to change my att.i.tude, and I really think he succeeded. I started saying those things to myself.

”You're nothing, Zlatan. You're s.h.i.+t. You're not even half as good as you think you are! You've got to work harder.”

It got me going, and a got more of a winner's mindset. There was no more talk of getting sent home by the coach. I put everything into every situation and I wanted to win every little match or compet.i.tion, even in training sessions, and, sure, I had some pain then in my left groin. But I didn't care. I just kept going. I had no intention of giving in. Didn't even care that it was getting worse and worse. I gritted my teeth. Several other players in the squad were injured then. I didn't want to give the manager any more problems, and I often played on painkillers. Tried to just ignore it. But Mino could see it he realised. He wanted me to work hard, not break myself.

”This can't go on, fella,” he said. ”You can't play injured.” I finally started taking it seriously and went to see a specialist, and it was decided that I would have an operation.

At the Rotterdam University Hospital they inserted a reinforcement in my left groin, and afterwards I had to rebuild my strength in the club's training pool. That was no fun. Mino told the physio that I'd had it too easy.

”This guy has just been swanning around, having fun. Now he's got to be made to fight and tire himself out! Really give it to him.”

I had to wear a d.a.m.ned heartbeat monitor and some kind of life vest that held me up, and then I would run in the water until I reached my absolute maximum level, and afterwards I was ready to puke my guts out. I collapsed by the edge of the pool. I just had to rest. I couldn't move. I was totally exhausted, and one time I needed to pee, it got worse and worse. But there was no way I'd make it to the toilet. There was a hole by the side of the pool so I p.i.s.sed into that hole. What else could I do? I was completely finished.