Part 9 (1/2)

I hung up, showered and drove home to Diemen, and my mood did not improve. But when I got home, I saw someone standing at the door. It was Mino. He had some nerve, that idiot, I thought, and I hadn't even got out of my car before we were yelling at each other again.

”How many times do I need to tell you?” he roared. ”You were s.h.i.+t, and you can't f.u.c.king kick over advertising signs. You need to grow up.”

”Go to h.e.l.l.”

”Go f.u.c.k yourself!”

”f.u.c.k you. I want out of here,” I screamed.

”In that case, you can move to Turin.”

”What are you talking about?”

”I might have Juventus lined up.”

”You what?”

”You heard me,” and I had. It's just that I didn't get it, not in the midst of that row.

”Have you sorted out Juventus for me?”

”Maybe.”

”Are you the most amazing thing ever, you b.l.o.o.d.y idiot?”

”Nothing is certain yet, but I'm working on it,” he said, and I thought, Juventus!

That was a little different to Southampton.

Juventus were possibly the best club in Europe back then. They had stars like Thuram, Trezeguet, Del Piero, Buffon and Nedvd, and while the club had lost the Champions League final to AC Milan the previous year, on paper at least there was no team that was anywhere near them. The players were superstars, all of them, and the club had just signed Fabio Capello, the manager from Roma who'd been after me for several years, and I really started to hope. Come on, Mino, I thought, bring this one home!

Juventus was run by Luciano Moggi in those days. Moggi was a tough guy, a power broker who'd worked his way up from nothing to become one of the bigwigs of Italian football. He was the king of the transfer market.

That guy had transformed Juventus. The club won their league year after year under his leaders.h.i.+p. But Luciano Moggi wasn't exactly known for being whiter than white. He'd been involved in a bunch of scandals with bribes, doping and criminal trials and s.h.i.+t, and there were rumours that he belonged to the Camorra in Naples. Of course, that was bulls.h.i.+t. But the guy really did look like a mafioso. He liked cigars and flash suits, and as a negotiator he didn't stop at anything. He was a master at making deals, and he was an opponent to be reckoned with. But Mino knew him.

They were old enemies, you could say, who'd become friends. Mino had arranged a meeting with Moggi back when he was trying to get his business off the ground. But it wasn't a good start. Moggi's office was like a d.a.m.ned waiting room. There were, like, 20 people outside, and everyone was impatient. But nothing happened. Time just ticked away, and finally Mino blew a fuse. He stormed out, absolutely furious: what the h.e.l.l, blowing off a meeting like that? Most people would probably just have accepted the situation. Moggi was a big shot. But Mino has no respect for that kind of thing. If people are rude to him, it doesn't matter who they are. So he went looking for Moggi later that day at Urbani, the restaurant in Turin frequented by the club's staff and team members.

”You treated me badly,” he hissed.

”Who the h.e.l.l are you?” Moggi asked.

”You'll find out when you buy a player off me,” Mino roared, and he hated the guy for a long time after that.

He'd even introduce himself to other football bosses: ”I'm Mino. I'm against Moggi,” and because Moggi was a man who made enemies easily, that was often a good line to use. The only problem was, sooner or later Mino was going to have to do business with Moggi, and in 2001 Juventus wanted Nedvd, one of Mino's big players. But nothing was finalised, nothing at all. Mino had Real Madrid in the works as well, and he and Nedvd were only supposed to meet with Moggi in Turin to discuss things. But Moggi raised the stakes and rang round to journalists, photographers and supporters. He put together an entire welcoming committee before negotiations had even started, and neither Nedvd nor Mino could wriggle out of it.

Not that it bothered Mino, really. He wanted Nedvd at Juventus, and that coup gave him the opportunity to bargain for a better contract, but for the first time he was impressed by Moggi. The bloke may have been a b.a.s.t.a.r.d that time, but he knew his game, and the two of them declared peace and became friends ”I'm Mino. I'm with Moggi,” sort of. Not that they exactly cosied up together. But there was a certain respect there, and clearly a number of other clubs had dissed me. Moggi was the only one who'd been seriously interested. But it wasn't going to be easy.

Moggi didn't have a lot of time for us. We'd be able to meet with him in secret for half an hour in Monte Carlo. That was when the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix was on, and I guess Moggi was in town on business. The Fiat Group owns both Ferrari and Juventus, and we were going to meet him in a VIP room at the airport. But traffic was terrible, and we couldn't get there by car. We had to run, and Mino isn't exactly in tip-top physical condition. He's overweight. He was huffing and puffing. He was all sweaty, and he wasn't exactly dressed for a business meeting.

He was wearing Hawaiian shorts. He had on a Nike s.h.i.+rt and running shoes with no socks and was drenched in sweat, and we came barging into the VIP room there at the airport, and the air was thick with smoke. Luciano Moggi was puffing on a fat cigar. He's a bit older and bald, and you realise instantly that this guy has power. He's used to people doing what he says. But now he just stared at Mino's clothes.

”What the h.e.l.l are you wearing?”

”Are you here to check out what I look like?” Mino hissed back, and that was where things started.

Around that time, we had an international match against the Netherlands in Stockholm. It was just a friendly, but none of us had forgotten our loss in the Euro 2004 tournament and naturally we wanted to prove we could beat the Netherlands. The entire squad was out for revenge it was offensive, quite aggressive football, and early on in the match I got a ball outside the penalty area. I immediately had four Dutchmen on me. One of them was Rafael van der Vaart, and all of them were going for me. It was a tough situation, and I powered my way through and got the ball to Mattias Jonson, who was standing open.

He made it 10, and afterwards van der Vaart was lying in pain on the pitch. He was stretchered off with a torn ligament in his ankle, nothing serious. But he might miss a match or two, and he went and claimed in the papers that I'd injured him on purpose. I gave a start. What kind of s.h.i.+t was that? There wasn't even a free kick awarded, so how could he say that stuff about doing it on purpose? And that guy was supposed to be my team captain!

I phoned him up and said, ”Listen up, I'm sorry, it's a shame about your injury, I apologise, but it wasn't intentional, you got that?” And I said the same thing to the journalists. I said it a hundred times. But van der Vaart carried on, and I couldn't understand it. Why the h.e.l.l was he going round tras.h.i.+ng his teammate? It didn't make any sense. Or did it?

I started to wonder because don't forget, this was August and the transfer window was open. Maybe he wanted to fight his way out of the club? Or fight me out as well, for that matter? It wouldn't exactly be the first time somebody tried that kind of trick, and the guy had the media on his side down there.

I mean, he was the Dutchman. He was the darling of the gossip pages, and I was a bad boy and all that, the foreigner. ”Are you serious?” I asked him when I saw him at the training ground. He clearly was.

”Okay, okay,” I said. ”I'll say it one last time. It was not intentional. D'you hear me?”

”I hear you!”

But he didn't back down even a millimetre, and the atmosphere in the club got more and more heated. The whole team divided into two camps. The Dutch were on Rafael's side, and the foreigners were on mine. Finally Koeman called us in to a meeting, and by that time I was completely obsessed with this thing. What the h.e.l.l, accusing me of something like that? I was absolutely seething, and we all sat in a circle there at the meeting in our lunch room on the third floor, and I could immediately sense it in the air. This was serious. The management insisted that we should patch things up. We were key players, and we had to get on. But there weren't any openings right away. Rafael came out harder than ever.

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

What the h.e.l.l! 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.