Part 12 (1/2)

The ball hadn't gone into the side, not at all. It flew straight into the top corner from an impossible angle, and the goalie didn't even have a chance to lift a finger, and not much later the referee blew the final whistle, and n.o.body was giving me a failing mark any more.

The goal became a cla.s.sic, and we made it to the World Cup, and I really hoped it would be a success. I needed it, and really, it felt good down there in our World Cup village in Germany, despite the concerns at Juventus. We had a new a.s.sistant coach since Tommy Sderberg had left, and it wasn't just anybody. It was Roland Andersson, the guy who'd told me, ”Time to stop playing with the little kids, Zlatan,” the guy who'd called me up into the first team, and I was honestly touched. I hadn't seen him since he'd got the sack from Malm FF, and it felt great that I was able to show him, you were right, Roland. It was worth it to invest in me. He'd taken some flak for it. But here we were now, Roland and me. Things had worked out for both of us, and in general the atmosphere was good. There were loads of Swedish fans, and everywhere you could hear that song that little guy sang, you know the one that goes, n.o.body kicks a football like him, Zlatan, I said Zlatan.

It had a good beat. But my groin didn't feel good, and my family were making a fuss. It was nuts, really. It doesn't matter that I'm the little brother only Keki is younger than me I've become like a dad to all of them, and there was always something going on there in Germany. There was Dad who'd cancelled and his tickets were still unclaimed, and then there was the hotel that was too far away, or Sapko my big brother, who needed money and then when he got some he couldn't get round to exchanging it into euros. And then Helena was seven months pregnant. She could look after herself, but she was surrounded by chaos and uproar. When she was getting off the bus before our match against Paraguay, all the fans swarmed around her like lunatics, and she felt unsafe and flew home the next day. There was one thing after another, both big and small.

”Please, Zlatan, can't you sort out this and that?”

I was my family's travel coordinator in Germany, and I couldn't focus on my game. My phone was ringing constantly. There were complaints and everything you can imagine. It was completely nuts. I was playing in the f.u.c.king World Cup. Yet I was supposed to sort out hire cars and s.h.i.+t, and I probably shouldn't have been playing at all. My groin was giving me trouble, like I said. But Lagerbck was certain. I was going to be in, and our first match was against Trinidad and Tobago, and of course we were supposed to win, not just with one goal, but with three, four, five. But nothing went our way. Their goalkeeper was on incredible form and we couldn't score, even when one of their guys was sent off. The only positive thing that came out of that match happened afterwards. I said h.e.l.lo to the Trinidad and Tobago coach.

The coach's name was Leo Beenhakker. It was fantastic to see him. G.o.d knows, there are a lot of people who want to take credit for my career. Almost all of it is bulls.h.i.+t ridiculous attempts by people to ride on my coattails, but there are a few guys who've really meant a lot. Roland Andersson is one, and Beenhakker is another. They believed in me when others doubted. I hope I can do similar things myself when I get older. Not just complain about those who are different, like, look, now he's dribbling again, now he's doing this and that, but think a step ahead.

There's a photo of that encounter with Beenhakker. I've taken off my match s.h.i.+rt and my face is beaming, despite the disappointment of the match.

Things never loosened up for me during the tournament. We managed a draw against England, and that was good. But Germany destroyed us in the final of the group stage, and my playing sucked, and I'm really not going to try to defend myself. I take full responsibility. Your family is your family. You've got to take care of them. But I shouldn't have been their travel coordinator, and the World Cup was also a lesson for me.

Afterwards I explained it to them all: ”You're welcome to come along, and I'll try to organise things for you, but once you're there you'll have to sort out your own problems and look after yourselves.”

I returned to Turin, and it no longer felt like home. Turin had become a place I needed to leave, and the atmosphere in the club hadn't exactly improved. There had been yet another disaster.

Gianluca Pessotto had been a defender in the squad since back in 1995. He'd won everything with the club and identified with Juventus. I knew him pretty well. We'd played together for two years, and the guy was really not the c.o.c.ky sort. He was incredibly sensitive and kind, and stayed in the background. Exactly what happened after that, I don't know.

Pessotto had just retired from playing and became the new team manager, replacing Alessio Secco who'd been promoted to director, and maybe it wasn't easy to switch to an office job after life as a player. But more than anything, the match scandal and the relegation to the second division had hit Pessotto really hard, and then some things had happened in his family.

One day he was sitting in his office, four floors up, as usual. But that day he climbed up to the window with a string of rosary beads in his hand, and threw himself backwards out of the window, landing on the asphalt between two cars. It was a fifteen-metre drop. Absolutely unbelievable that he survived! He ended up in hospital with fractures and internal bleeding, but he pulled through, and people were happy, despite everything. But of course his suicide attempt was seen as yet another bad sign. It was a little like, who'll be the next one to lose it?

Things felt really desperate, and now the new club president, Giovanni Cobolli Gigli, issued a declaration: the club was not going to let any more players go. The management would fight to keep each and every one, and of course I talked to Mino about it. We discussed it all the time, and we both agreed there was only one way. We had to hit back. So Mino told the press: ”We are prepared to use all legal means to free ourselves from the club.”

We weren't going to show any weakness, no way. If Juventus took a hard line, we'd come back just as hard. But this was no simple battle. There was a great deal at stake, and I spoke to Alessio Secco again, the guy who was trying to be the new Moggi, and I realised straight away that his att.i.tude had changed now.

”You have to stay with the club. We demand it of you. We want you to show loyalty to the team.”

”Before the off season, you said the opposite. That I should take an offer.”

”But the situation is different now. We're in a crisis situation. We will offer you a new contract.”

”I'm not staying,” I said. ”Not under any conditions.”

Every day, every hour, the pressure increased and it was really unpleasant, and I fought with everything I had, with Mino, with the law, with everything I could. But it's true. I couldn't be that pig-headed. I was still getting paid by the club, and the big question was: how far should I go? I talked it over with Mino.

We decided I would practise with the team, but not play any matches. Mino claimed there was a possibility of interpreting the contract that way, so in spite of everything, I headed off to the pre-season camp in the mountains with the rest of them. The players in the Italian national side hadn't arrived yet. They were still in Germany. Italy went on to win the World Cup. That was an incredibly impressive achievement, I thought, when you consider the scandals they had going on at home, and I had to congratulate them. But, of course, it didn't help me. Our new manager at the club was Didier Deschamps. He was a former player as well, a Frenchman. He'd been the captain of the French national side when they won the 1998 World Cup, and now in his new job he'd been given the task of getting Juventus back into the top division again. The pressure on him was enormous, and on the very first day at camp he came up to me.

”Ibra,” he said.

”Yeah?”

”I want to build the game around you. You're my key player. You're the future. You've got to help us get back.”

”Thanks, but ...”

”No buts. You've got to stay with the club. I won't accept anything else,” he added, and even though it didn't feel nice I mean, I heard how important I was to him I stayed firm: ”No, no, no. I'm leaving.”

I was sharing a room at camp with Nedvd. Nedvd and I were friends. We both had Mino as our agent. But we were in different situations. Just like Del Piero, Buffon and Trezeguet, Nedvd had decided to stay at Juventus, and I remember how Deschamps came up to us, maybe to play us off one another, I dunno. He clearly had no intention of giving up.

”Listen,” he said. ”I'm expecting great things from you, Ibra. You were one of the main reasons I took this job.”

”Don't give me that,” I replied. ”You took it for the club, not for me.”

”I mean it. If you quit, I quit,” he continued, and I couldn't help smiling, in spite of everything.

”Okay, pack your bags and I'll ring for a taxi,” I said, and he laughed as if I was joking.

But I'd never been so serious in my life. If Juventus was fighting for its life as a big club, I was fighting for mine as a player as well. A year in Serie B would make everything come to a halt, and one day Alessio Secco and Jean-Claude Blanc came up to me. Jean-Claude was a Harvard man, a bigwig the Agnelli family had brought in to save Juventus, and he'd been very thorough. He had his papers in order and had printed out a draft contract with various sums, and straight away I thought, don't even read it! Argue instead! The more you argue, the more they'll want to get rid of you.

”I don't even want to see it. I'm not going to sign,” I replied.

”You can at least look at what we're offering, can't you? We've been b.l.o.o.d.y generous!”

”How come? It won't lead anywhere.”

”There's no way you can know that if you haven't even looked at it.”

”Of course I know. If you offered me 20 million euro, I wouldn't be interested.”

”That's very disrespectful,” Blanc hissed.

”You can take it however you want,” I said and walked off, and sure, I knew I'd insulted him, and that's always a risk, and in the worst case I could be without a club come September.

But I had to play a high-stakes game. I had to keep it up, and sure, I realised I no longer held the best cards for negotiating. I'd played badly in the World Cup, and hadn't been particularly good the past season at Juventus. I was too heavy and hadn't scored enough goals. But I hoped people recognised my potential. Only a year before I'd been awesome and was voted the best foreign player in the team! There should be some interest among the other clubs, I thought, and Mino was also working hard behind the scenes.

”I've got Inter and AC Milan on the go,” he said early on, and that definitely sounded good. There was a light at the end of the tunnel.

But it was still idle talk at that point, and we still didn't know what the situation looked like with my contract at Juventus. What chances did I have to get away from the club if they refused? I wasn't sure, and things were up and down every day. Mino was optimistic. It was his job to be, and I couldn't do anything but wait, and fight. It was already known in the press that I wanted to get out at any price. Now there were also murmurings that Inter Milan were after me, and the Juventus supporters hate Inter, and as a footballer you're constantly surrounded by fans. They hang around with their autograph books and flags outside the gates of the training grounds, and they're often allowed to pay to come in and watch. There's business everywhere in this sport, and there in the mountains outside Turin at our pre-season camp, they were standing by the pitch, screaming at me.

”Traitor, swine,” they roared, and other stuff like that, and sure, it wasn't nice.

But honestly, as a player you get used to most of it, and those insults rolled off my back. We were going to play a friendly match against Spezia, and what had I said about matches? I wasn't going to play them. So I stayed in my room and played on my PlayStation. Outside, the bus was waiting to take us to the stadium, and everybody was already down there, including Nedvd, and as I understand it, the bus was waiting with its engine running. They were ma.s.sively impatient: where the h.e.l.l's Ibra? They waited and waited, and finally Didier Deschamps came up to my room. He was furious.

”Why are you sitting here? We're supposed to leave.”

I didn't even look up. I just carried on playing.

”Didn't you hear what I said?”

”Didn't you hear what I said?” I retorted. ”I'll practise, but I'm not playing any matches. I've told you that ten times.”

”You b.l.o.o.d.y well will play. You belong to this team. Now come on, right now. Get up.”