Part 11 (2/2)

I won the Guldbollen in Sweden, the prize awarded to the best player of the year, and of course that was fun, but it wasn't without complications. The award ceremony was organised by that tabloid, Aftonbladet, and I hadn't forgotten. I stayed at home. The Winter Olympics were held in Turin the following year. There were people everywhere, with parties and concerts in the Piazza Castello, and in the evenings Helena and I would stand on the balcony and watch. We were happy together and decided to start a family, or rather, we just let it happen. I don't think you can really plan something like that. It should just happen. Who knows when you're ready? Sometimes we went back to Malm to visit my family. Helena had sold her place in the country and we often stayed at Mum's, in the terraced house I'd bought her in Svgertorp, and occasionally I'd play a little football on her lawn. One day I took a shot.

I really kicked it hard, and the ball went right through the fence. It made a big hole, and of course Mum wanted to kill me she's got a temper, that woman. ”Now get out of here and buy me a new fence. Go!” she roared, and of course in situations like that there's only one thing to do: you obey. Helena and I drove to the DIY centre. But unfortunately you couldn't buy just a few planks of wood. We had to buy a whole section of fencing, the size of a shed, and it wouldn't fit in the car, no way. So I carried it on my back and on my head for two kilometres. It was like the time Dad carried my bed, and I got back absolutely knackered, but Mum was happy, and that was the main thing, and like I said, we were having a nice time.

But on the pitch I was losing some of my flow. I started feeling too heavy. I was up to 98 kilograms, and it wasn't all muscle. I was often eating pasta twice a day, and I discovered that was too much, and so I reduced the weight training and the food and tried to get back into shape. But there was some ha.s.sle. Like what was up with Moggi? Was he playing at something? I couldn't figure it out.

We were supposed to renegotiate my contract. But Moggi kept stalling. He came up with excuses. He'd always been a player and a wiseguy, but now he was absolutely hopeless. Next week, he'd say. Next month. There was always something. It went back and forth, and finally I was fed up. I told Mino, ”I don't give a d.a.m.n. Let's sign now! I don't want to argue any more.”

We'd come up with an agreement that looked all right and I thought, enough is enough, I wanted it to be over and done with. But nothing happened then either, or rather, Moggi said fine, good, we'll sign in a few days' time. First we were going to play against Bayern Munich in the Champions League. That was at home in Turin, and during the match I encountered a centre back called Valerien Ismal. He was on me the whole time, and because he'd taken me down really badly I kicked him and got a yellow card. But it didn't stop there.

In the 90th minute I was down in the penalty area and sure, I should have kept my cool. We were ahead 21 and the match was nearly over. But I was annoyed with Ismal and gave him a scissorkick and got another yellow card. I was sent off, and obviously, Capello was not happy. He gave me a b.o.l.l.o.c.king. That was only proper. What I'd done was unnecessary and stupid, and it was Capello's job to teach me a lesson.

But Moggi, what did he have to do with it? He declared that my contract was no longer valid. I'd blown my chance, he said, and I went crazy. Was I supposed to miss out on my deal because of one mistake?

”Tell Moggi I'm never going to sign, no matter what he comes up with,” I told Mino. ”I want to be transferred.”

”Think about what you're saying,” Mino said.

I had thought about it. I refused to accept it, and that meant war, nothing else. This was it. This would have to do, so Mino went to Moggi and laid it on the line: watch out for Zlatan, he's stubborn, crazy, you risk losing him, and two weeks later Moggi finally turned up with the contract. We hadn't expected anything else. He didn't want to lose me. But that still wasn't the end of it. Mino arranged meetings. Moggi postponed them, and came up with excuses. He had to travel, he had to do this and that, and I remember it clearly: Mino phoned me.

”Something's not right,” he said.

”Huh? What do you mean?”

”I can't put my finger on it. But Moggi's behaving strangely.”

Soon it wasn't just Mino who was sensing it. Something was up. Something was happening in the club, and it wasn't anything to do with Lapo Elkann, although that was a big enough thing. Lapo Elkann was the grandson of Gianni Agnelli. I'd met him a few times. We didn't really hit it off. A guy like that is on a different planet. He was a playboy and a fas.h.i.+on plate and had barely anything to do with the running of Juventus. It was Moggi and Giraudo who ran things, not the family who owned the club. But it's true, the guy was a symbol of the club and of Fiat, and he was later included in lists of the world's best-dressed people, and all that. His scandal was a ma.s.sive thing.

Lapo Elkann took an overdose of cocaine, and not just with anybody. He took it with transs.e.xual prost.i.tutes in an apartment in Turin, and was taken by ambulance to hospital, where he lay in a coma, breathing on a respirator. It led all the news broadcasts in Italy, and Del Piero and some other players appeared in the media expressing their support. Of course, the whole thing had nothing to do with football. But afterwards it was still seen as the thing that sparked off the catastrophe in the club.

I have no idea when Moggi himself found out about the suspicions. But the police must have started questioning him long before the affair exploded in the media. As I understand it, everything started with the old doping scandal where Juventus was actually cleared in the end. The police had bugged Moggi's phone in connection with that and got to hear a lot of stuff that had nothing to do with doping, but which still seemed dodgy. It seemed that Moggi was trying to get the 'right' referees for Juventus' matches, and so they kept him under surveillance, and obviously a load of s.h.i.+t came out, at least they thought so when everything was a.s.sembled, even though I don't set a lot of store by their evidence. Most of it was about Juventus being number one. I'm sure of it.

As always when somebody is on top, others want to drag them down into the dirt, and it didn't surprise me at all that the accusations emerged when we were about to claim the league t.i.tle again. It looked bad, we realised that straight away. The media treated it like World War III. But it was bulls.h.i.+t, like I said, most of it. Referees giving us preferential treatment? Come on! We'd struggled hard out there.

We'd risked our necks and didn't have any d.a.m.n referees in our pockets, no way. I've never had them on my side, to be honest. I'm too big for that. If some guy slams into me I stand still, but if I crash into him he goes flying several metres. I've got my body and my playing style against me.

I've never been mates with the referees, n.o.body in our team had been. No, we were the best and had to be brought down. That was the truth, and there was also a load of dodgy stuff in that investigation. For example, it was conducted by Guido Rossi, a bloke with close ties to Inter Milan, and Inter Milan emerged from the mess surprisingly unscathed.

A lot of things were either ignored or exaggerated in order to make Juventus out to be the big villain. AC Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina along with the referees' a.s.sociation also came off badly. But things were worst for us, because it was Moggi's telephone that was bugged and investigated from top to bottom. Still the evidence was never that strong. Okay, things didn't look brilliant either, that's true.

It seemed as though Moggi was putting pressure on the Italian referees to get good guys for our matches, and you can hear how he b.o.l.l.o.c.ks the ones who've performed badly, including one called Fandel who refereed Juventus' fight against Djurgrden. It was claimed that some other referees were held back in the changing room and given a b.o.l.l.o.c.king after we lost to Reggina in November 2004, and then there was the thing with the Pope. The Pope was dying. No matches were supposed to be played then. The nation was supposed to mourn its Holy Father. But Moggi was said to have phoned the Minister of the Interior, no less, and asked him to let us play anyway, according to the allegations, because our opponents Fiorentina had two players injured and two banned. I have no idea how much truth there is in that. That's probably the sort of stuff that goes on all over in this industry, and honestly, who the h.e.l.l doesn't yell at referees? Who doesn't work on behalf of their club?

It was a mess the scandal was often referred to as Moggiopoli in the Italian press, sort of like 'Moggi-gate', and of course my name came up. I hadn't expected otherwise. Obviously they were going to drag the top players into it as well. People were saying that Moggi had talked about my fight with van der Vaart and said something like I was heading in the right direction to leave the club. The guy's got b.a.l.l.s, he'd said, or something to that effect. He even was alleged to have encouraged the fight, and people lapped that up, of course. That would be a typical Moggi thing, they thought, and a typical Ibra trick too, probably. But it was bulls.h.i.+t, of course. That fight was a thing between me and van der Vaart, and n.o.body else.

But in those days people could say anything at all, and on the morning of the 18th of May I got a phone call. Helena and I were in Monte Carlo with Alexander stlund and his family, and I heard over the phone that there were police outside my door. The police wanted to come in. They even had a warrant to search my apartment, and, honestly, what could I do?

I left Monte Carlo immediately. I drove to Turin in an hour and met the police outside, and I have to say, they were gentlemen. They were just doing their job. But, still, it wasn't pleasant. They were going to go through all the payments I'd received from Juventus, like I was a criminal, and they asked me if I'd accepted anything under the table, and I told them the truth: ”Never!” and then they started poking around. Finally I said to them: ”Is this what you're looking for?”

I handed over Helena's and my bank statements, and they were satisfied with those. They said thanks, bye, we like your playing, and stuff. Juventus' management, Giraudo, Bettega and Moggi resigned around that time, and it felt weird. They'd been landed right in the s.h.i.+t. Moggi told the papers, ”I've lost my soul. It's been killed.”

The next day, Juventus' share price crashed on the Milan stock exchange, and we had a crisis meeting in our weight room, in the gym, and I'll never forget that.

Moggi came down. On the surface he looked the same as usual, well dressed and dominant. But this was a different Moggi. Another scandal somehow involving his son had just emerged. This time it was some kind of infidelity thing, and he talked about it, and about how insulting it was, and I remember I agreed with him. That was personal stuff that had nothing to do with football. But that wasn't what affected me most.

It was that he started to cry him, of all people. I felt it in my gut. I'd never seen him weak before. That man had always had control. He radiated power and strength. But now... how can I explain it? It wasn't long since he'd been throwing his weight around with me and declared my contract void and all that. But now, suddenly, I was the one who was supposed to feel sorry for him. This world had been turned upside down, and maybe I shouldn't have been so bothered about him, and said, like, you've only got yourself to blame. But I really felt for Moggi. It hurt to see a man like him brought down, and I thought a lot about it afterwards, and not just the same old stuff: you can't take anything for granted! I started to view certain things in a new light. Why had he kept postponing our meetings? Why had he made such a fuss?

Was it to protect me?

I started to think so. I didn't know for sure. But that's how I chose to interpret it. He must have known this was going to come out, even then. He must have realised Juventus wouldn't be the same team as before, and that things would have been over for me if he'd tied me to the club. I would've had to stay at Juventus no matter what happened. I believe he was thinking about stuff like that. Moggi maybe didn't always stop at red lights, or obey every rule and regulation. But he was a talented businessman, and he took care of his players, I know that, and without him my career would have got stuck in a dead end. I thank him for that, and when the whole world is criticising him, I'm on his side. I liked Luciano Moggi.

Juventus was a sinking s.h.i.+p, and people started saying the club was going to be relegated to Serie B or even down to Serie C. That's how big a commotion it was. But it wasn't possible to take in, not all at once. We'd built up such a team and won two league t.i.tles in a row were we going to lose everything because of something that hadn't meant a thing to our game? That was just too much, and it seemed to take a while before the new club management grasped the seriousness of the situation. I remember an early phone call from Alessio Secco.

Alessio Secco was my old team manager. He was the one who'd used to call me to arrange training sessions: ”We're starting tomorrow at ten-thirty! Be there on time.” That type of stuff. Now he was suddenly the new director completely crazy! and I had a hard time taking him seriously. But in that first conversation he gave me an opening: ”If you get an offer, Zlatan, take it. That's my recommendation to you.”

Then again, that was the last nice thing that was said to me. Afterwards things got tougher, and sure, I can understand that. One after another, the players left: Thuram and Zambrotta to Barcelona, Cannavaro and Emerson to Real Madrid, Patrick Vieira to Inter Milan, and all the rest of us who were still left were ringing our agents, saying, ”Sell us, sell us. What prospects are out there?”

Uncertainty and desperation hung in the air. Things were buzzing everywhere, and there were no more remarks like the one Alessio Secco had given me. Now the club was fighting for its life.

The management started doing everything it could to keep those of us who were still there, exploiting every loophole there was in our contracts. It was a nightmare. I was on my way up in my career. I was just starting to make a serious breakthrough. Was everything going to come cras.h.i.+ng down now? It was an uncertain time, and with each day that pa.s.sed, I felt it more and more: I was going to fight. No way was I going to sacrifice a year in the second division. One year! it would be more, I understood that. One year to get back up if we were relegated, and another year or two to get back to the top of the league and gain a place in the Champions League, and then we probably wouldn't have a team that could compete. My best years as a footballer were in danger of being wasted, and I told Mino over and over: ”Do whatever it takes. Just get me out of here.”

”I'm working on it.”

”You better be!”

It was June 2006. Helena was pregnant, and I was happy about that. The baby was due at the end of September, but other than that I was in no man's land. What was going to happen? I knew nothing. During this time I was preparing with the Swedish national side for the World Cup that was being held in Germany that summer. My whole family were coming along: Mum, Dad, Sapko, Sanela, her husband and Keki, and as usual I was the one who was sorting everything out, hotels, travel, money, hire cars and all that.

It was already getting on my nerves, and at the last minute Dad decided not to come, it was the usual muddle, and there was a huge to-do with his tickets. What should we do with them? Who would get them instead? You can't say I was getting more balanced as a result of that, and then I started getting pains in my groin again, the same s.h.i.+t I had an operation for when I was at Ajax, and I spoke with the national team's management about it.

But we decided I'd play. I have one fundamental principle: if things go badly, I don't blame my injuries. That's just ridiculous. I mean, if you're no good because of an injury, why are you playing? Whatever answer you give, it's wrong. You've just got to grit your teeth and go for it, but it's true, it was especially hard in those days, and on the 14th of July the verdict was finally handed down in Italy.

We were stripped of our two league t.i.tles and lost our spot in the Champions League, but above all, we were relegated to Serie B and would start the season with a bunch of minus points, possibly as many as 30, and I was still on that sinking s.h.i.+p.

15.

EARLIER, IN SEPTEMBER 2005, we'd played against Hungary in a World Cup qualifier at the Ferenc Pusks Stadium in Budapest. We basically had to win in order to qualify for the World Cup, and the pressure had been building for days before the match. But it turned out to be an anticlimax. Nothing happened, and I never really got into the game. I was out of sorts and off form, and when we'd played the full time the score was 00 and the spectators were just waiting for the final whistle.

Certain papers had clearly given me a failing mark. I was a disappointment, and I'm sure many people saw it as confirmation that I was just an over-hyped diva, after all. But then I got a ball in the penalty area, I think it was from Mattias Jonson, and I didn't seem to know what to do with it either. I had a defender on me and I dribbled out towards our half of the pitch without gaining anything from it. But then I turned, just like, bam because don't forget, these are the kind of situations I play for, and that's why I seem to just wander around on the pitch so often. I save my energy so I can burst out with fast, aggressive moves, and now I took a few quick steps towards the sideline and the defender couldn't keep up, not at all, and I got a chance to shoot, not a good angle. It was too steep, and the goalie was well positioned, and most people were expecting a cross or a pa.s.s.

But I thundered on and from that position, the ball doesn't usually go in. Chances are it'll go into the side of the net, and the goalie didn't react. He didn't even raise his arms, and for a fraction of a second I thought I'd missed. I wasn't the only one. There was no eruption in the stadium, and Olof Mellberg was hanging his head, like, s.h.i.+t, so close and in overtime. He even turned his back. He was waiting for Hungary to kick it back in, and down in our goal Andreas Isaksson was thinking, it's too quiet, and Olof is shaking his head. The ball must have gone into the side of the net. But then I raised my arms and rushed round the net, and the stadium came alive.

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