I Am Zlatan Part 11

I got a carp the fish that swims against the current and a Buddha symbol to protect against suffering, and the five elements: water, earth, fire and the rest. I got my family tattooed on my arms: the men on my right because the right side stands for strength: Dad, my brothers and later on my sons, and then the women on my left, closest to the heart: Mum, Sanela, but not my half-sisters who split with the family. It felt obvious then, but later I spent some time thinking about it: who's family and who's not? But that was later on.

I was focused on football then. Often it's clear early in the spring who will become the league champions. There's some team that stands out. But that year it was a hard fight right to the end. We and AC Milan both had 70 points, and the papers wrote a ton about it of course. The stage was set for a drama. On the 18th of May we were going to meet at San Siro. It felt like the real league final, and most people thought Milan would win. Not just because they had the home advantage. In the season opener against us at Stadio delle Alpi we'd drawn 00. But AC Milan had dominated play, and many people considered them to be the best side in Europe then, despite our strong team, and n.o.body was really surprised when AC Milan went to the Champions League final again. We had the odds stacked against us, they said, and things weren't exactly looking up after our match against Inter Milan.

It was the 20th of April, just a few days after my hat trick against Lecce, and I was being praised everywhere, and Mino had warned me that Inter Milan would be guarding me really hard. I was a star. Inter Milan had to block me or psych me out.

"If you're going to survive, you've got to give it both barrels. Otherwise you haven't got a chance," Mino said, and I responded the way I always do: "That's no problem. Tough stuff gets me going."

But I was definitely nervous. There's an old hatred between Inter Milan and Juventus, and that year Inter Milan had a really brutal line of defence. Marco Materazzi was one of them. To this date, n.o.body has been given more red cards in Serie A than him. Materazzi was known for playing dirty and aggressive. A year later, in the summer of 2006, he gained global notoriety when he said something really crude to Zidane during the World Cup final and got headb.u.t.ted in the chest. Materazzi trash-talked and played rough. Sometimes he was called 'The Butcher'.

Inter Milan also had Ivn Crdoba, a short but athletic Colombian, and also Sinia Mihajlovic. Mihajlovic was a Serb, so there was a lot written about that, how the match was going to be a mini-Balkan War. That was bulls.h.i.+t. What happened on the pitch had nothing to do with the war. Mihajlovic and I later became friends at Inter Milan, and I've never cared where people come from. I don't give a d.a.m.n about that ethnicity c.r.a.p, and honestly, how could I do anything else? We're all mixed together in our family. My dad's Bosnian, my Mum's Croatian and my little brother has a father who's a Serb. No, it wasn't about that at all.

But Mihajlovic was really tough. He was one of the world's best free kickers, and he trash-talked a lot. He'd called Patrick Vieira 'nero de merda', you black s.h.i.+t, in a Champions League match, and that had led to a police investigation and suspected racist abuse. Another time he kicked and spat on Adrian Mutu who'd just started playing for us, and he got an eight-match ban for that. He could go off like a bomb. Not that I want to make a big thing of it, not at all. What happens on the pitch, stays on the pitch. That's my philosophy, and to be honest, you'd be shocked if you knew what goes on out there, there are punches and insults, it's a constant fight, but to us players it's business as usual, and I'm just mentioning this stuff about the Inter Milan defenders to give you an idea that these guys were not to be taken lightly. They could play nasty and hard, and I realised immediately that this is brutal, this is no ordinary match. It's insults and hate.

There was a load of c.r.a.p about my family and my honour, and I responded by striking back hard. There's nothing else you can do in that situation. If you waver, you'll be crushed. You've got to channel your rage to give even more on the pitch, and I played an extremely physical, tough game. It wasn't going to be easy to face Zlatan, not for a second, and at that time I'd been gaining in strength. I wasn't the skinny Ajax dribbler any more. I was bigger and faster. I was no easy prey, not in any sense, and afterwards Inter Milan's coach Roberto Mancini said: "That phenomenon Ibrahimovic, when he's playing at that level, he's impossible to mark."

But G.o.d knows they tried, they gave me plenty of tackles, and I was just as tough in return. I was wild. I was 'Il Gladiatore', as the Italian papers put it, and just four minutes in Crdoba and I smashed our heads into each other, and were both left lying on the pitch. I got up, groggy. Crdoba was bleeding heavily, stumbled off and needed st.i.tches. He returned with a bandage round his head, and nothing let up. Not at all! Instead, there was something serious brewing, and we cast dark looks at each other. This was war. It was nerves and aggression, and in the 13th minute Mihajlovic and I landed together after a collision.

For a moment we were confused. Like, what happened? But then we discovered that we were sitting on the gra.s.s next to each other, and the adrenaline rush came, and he made a gesture with his head. I responded by miming a headb.u.t.t. I'm sure it looked ridiculous, it was meant as a threat, but I just pushed my head against him. Believe me, if I'd really headb.u.t.ted him he wouldn't have got up. It was more of a touch, a way of showing: I'm not giving in to you, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d! But Mihajlovic put his hand up to his face and dropped to the ground; of course it was all an act. He wanted to get me sent off. But I didn't even get a warning, not then.

That came a minute later in a tackle with Favalli. It was an ugly match in general, but I was playing well and was involved in almost all our goal attempts, but Inter's goalkeeper Francesco Toldo was brilliant. He made one save after another, and we conceded one goal. Julio Cruz headed it in, and we tried everything to equalise. It was close, but we didn't manage it, and there was war and revenge in the air.

Crdoba wanted to get me back, he kicked me in the thigh and got a yellow card. Materazzi was trying to psych me out, and Mihajlovic continued with his insults and his tackles and s.h.i.+t, and I was working hard. I powered my way through. I fought and had a good shot at goal just before half time.

In the second half I shot from far away and hit the outside of the goalpost, right by the corner, and then I had a free kick, which Toldo saved with an incredible reflex.

But there was no goal, and with just a minute left on the clock Crdoba and I clashed again. We collided, and straight afterwards, like a reflexive movement, I gave him another whack, a punch to the chin or the throat. It was nothing serious, I thought, it was part of our fight on the pitch, and the referee never saw it. But it had consequences. We lost, and that was hard. The way things looked in the league table, this match could cost us the Scudetto.

But the Italian league's disciplinary committee examined video stills of my punch to Crdoba and decided to issue me with a three-match ban, and that was a minor disaster. I was going to miss the closing fight in the series, including the decisive match against AC Milan on the 18th of May, and I felt I'd been treated unfairly. "I haven't been judged honestly," I told the journalists. All that s.h.i.+t I'd taken, and I was the one being punished.

That was hard, and considering the significance I'd had for the team, it was a blow for the entire club, and the management appealed and called in Luigi Chiappero, the star lawyer. Chiappero had defended Juventus against the old doping charges, and now he maintained not only that my hit was part of a play for the ball, or at least in close connection with it. I'd also been subjected to attacks and insults throughout the entire match, he said. He even hired a lip-reader to try to a.n.a.lyse what Mihajlovic had yelled at me. But it wasn't easy. A lot of it was in Serbo-Croatian, so instead Mino went out and said that Mihajlovic had said things that were too crude to repeat, stuff about my family and my mum.

"Raiola is nothing but a pizza chef," Mihajlovic retorted.

Mino had never been a pizza chef. He'd helped out with other things in his parents' restaurant and countered: "The best thing about Mihajlovic's statement is that it now proves what everybody already knew, that he's stupid. He doesn't even deny that he was provoking Zlatan. He's a racist, he's shown us that before."

It was a mess. Accusations were flying back and forth, and Luciano Moggi, who was never afraid of anything, hinted at a conspiracy, a coup. The cameras that had caught my punch came from Mediaset, Berlusconi's media corporation, and of course Berlusconi was the owner of AC Milan. Hadn't the images been handed over awfully fast to the disciplinary committee? Even the Minister of the Interior, Giuseppe Pisanu, commented on the matter, and there were disputes in the papers every day.

But none of it helped. The ban was confirmed, and I would be out for the decider against AC Milan. This had been my season, and I wanted nothing more than to be part of it and win the league. But now I'd have to watch the match from the stands, and that was tough. The pressure was terrible, and the bulls.h.i.+t continued to flood in from every direction, and now it wasn't just about my ban. It was about all sorts of things. It was a three-ring circus.

This was Italy, and Juventus implemented a silenzio stampa n.o.body was allowed to speak to the media. Nothing, no new arguments about my ban, could be allowed to disturb the final preparations. Everyone had to shut up and concentrate on the match, which was seen as one of the most important matches of the year in Europe. Both we and AC Milan had 76 points then. It was a thriller. The match was the hot topic of discussion in Italy and most people agreed, including the betting agencies: AC Milan were the favourites. There were eighty thousand tickets sold, AC Milan were on their home ground and I was banned me, who was seen as the key player. Adrian Mutu also had a ban. Zebina and Tacchinardi were injured. We didn't have our best gang together, while Milan had a brilliant line-up with Caf, Nesta, Stam and Maldini in defence, Kak in the midfield, and Filippo Inzaghi and Shevchenko up front.

I had a bad feeling about it, and it was no fun at all when the papers wrote that my outbursts looked like they would cost us the league t.i.tle. "He needs to learn to control himself. He needs to calm down." There was that kind of c.r.a.p constantly, even from Capello, and it was awful that I couldn't be involved.

But the team were incredibly motivated. The rage over what had happened seemed to fire everybody up, and 27 minutes into the first half Del Piero was dribbling up the left side and was stopped by Gattuso, the Milan guy who works harder than anybody else, and the ball flew back in a high arc, with Del Piero rus.h.i.+ng after it. He gave it a bicycle kick, and the ball flew into the penalty area and found David Trezeguet, who headed it into the goal. But there was a lot of time remaining in the match.

AC Milan put on an unbelievable amount of pressure, and 11 minutes into the second half Inzaghi broke free in front of the goal. He shot, and Buffon saved it, the ball bounced and Inzaghi got it back. He got a new chance, but was prevented by Zambrotta on the goal line and crashed into the goalpost.

Both teams had one chance after another. Del Piero shot at the crossbar, and Caf called for a penalty. There was stuff happening all the time. But the result stood. We won 10, and suddenly we were the ones who had the advantage, and not long after that I got to play again. A burden was lifted from my shoulders, and on the 15th of May we were meeting Parma at home at the Stadio delle Alpi, and there was huge pressure on me. Not just because it was my return after the ban. Ten leading football magazines had voted me the number 3 striker in Europe after Shevchenko and Ronaldo, and there was even talk that I might win the European Golden Shoe award.

I was going to have a lot of eyes on me in any case, especially since Capello had benched Trezeguet, the hero of the Milan match, and it felt like I had to perform. I had to be fired up, up to a certain point, that is. There couldn't be any new outbursts or bans, everybody made that absolutely clear to me. Every camera alongside the pitch would be on me, and as I entered the stadium, I could hear the fans chanting 'Ibrahimovic, Ibrahimovic, Ibrahimovic'.

It was thundering around me, and I was itching to play, and we scored 10, and later in the 33rd minute, after a free kick from Camoranesi the ball came high towards me in the penalty area, and I'd been criticised for not heading well enough despite my height.

Now I headed it for all I was worth into the goal, and it was fantastic. I was back, and just a few minutes before the final whistle a message flashed up on the electronic scoreboard in the stadium: Lecce had drawn 22 against AC Milan, and it looked like the Scudetto was ours.

If we could just beat Livorno in the next round, we'd secure our victory! But we didn't even need that. On the 20th of May AC Milan lost after leading Parma 31, and we were the champions. People were weeping in the streets of Turin, and we rode through the city in an open-topped bus. We could hardly get through. There were people everywhere, and everybody was singing and cheering and screaming. I felt like a little kid, and we went out and ate and partied with the whole team, and I don't drink that often. I've got too many unpleasant memories. But now I just cut loose.

We'd won the champions.h.i.+p t.i.tle, and it was mental. No Swede had done it since Kurre Hamrin won with Milan in 1968, and there was no disputing that I'd been a part of it. I was voted best foreign player in the league and best player at Juventus. That was my personal Scudetto, and I drank and drank, and David Trezeguet kept egging me on. More vodka, more shots, he's a Frenchman and pretty uptight, but he wants to be an Argentinian he was born in Argentina and now he really cut loose. There was vodka flowing everywhere. It was no use resisting, and I got drunk as a skunk, and when I got home to Piazza Castello everything was swimming around me and I thought, I'll take a shower, maybe that'll help. But everything kept spinning.

As soon as I moved my head the whole world moved along with it, and finally I fell asleep in the bathtub. I was woken up by Helena, who just laughed at me. But I've told her never to breathe a word about it.

14.

MOGGI WAS THE WAY HE WAS, but he garnered respect, and it was nice to talk with him. He made things happen. He got right to the point. He had power and he grasped things quickly. When I was renegotiating my contract the first time, of course it was an important thing to me. I was hoping for a better contract, and I really didn't want to antagonise him, I wanted to do the polite thing, treat him like the big shot he was.

The only thing was, I had Mino with me, and Mino doesn't exactly bow and sc.r.a.pe. He's nuts. He just strode into Moggi's office and sat down in his chair with his feet on the desk, without a care in the world.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l," I said. "He'll be here soon. Don't wreck my contract. Sit over here with me."

"Go f.u.c.k yourself and be quiet," he said, and really, I hadn't expected anything else.

Mino's like that, and I knew the guy could negotiate. He was a master at it. Still, I was worried he'd ruin things for me, and I really didn't feel too good when Moggi walked in with his cigar and everything and growled, "What the h.e.l.l, are you sitting in my chair?"

"Sit down and we'll talk!" And of course, Mino knew what he was doing. They knew each other, him and Moggi.

They had a whole string of disrespectful stuff behind them, and I got a ma.s.sive improvement in my contract. But above all, I got a promise of a new deal. If I continued to play well and remained just as important to the club, I'd become the highest paid in the team, Moggi promised, and I was happy. But then the fuss started, and that was the first sign that something wasn't right.

That second year, I often shared a room with Adrian Mutu in hotels and camps, and I didn't exactly have an opportunity to be bored. Adrian Mutu is Romanian, but he'd come to Italy and Inter Milan back in 2000 so he knew the language and everything, and he was a big help to me. But that guy partied, too. I mean, the stories he had! I'd lie there in the hotel room and just laugh at it all. It was crazy. When he was bought by Chelsea, he partied constantly. But of course it couldn't last. He got caught with cocaine in his bloodstream and was sacked by Chelsea and got banned and caught up in a huge lawsuit. But when we were staying together, he'd been through treatment and was calm and clean again, and we could laugh at all the craziness. But you understand, I didn't have much to contribute on that front. What did falling asleep in the bath once amount to?

Patrick Vieira also arrived at the club then, and you sensed it straight away, this is a tough guy, and it was surely not by chance that we came to blows. I don't exactly go after the weaklings. With that type of bloke I give as good as I get, and at Juventus I'd got worse than ever. I was a warrior, and on this occasion I ran onto the pitch and Vieira had the ball.

"Give me the f.u.c.king ball," I yelled, and of course, I knew exactly who he was then.

Patrick Vieira had been team captain at a.r.s.enal. He'd won three Premier League t.i.tles with them and won the World Cup and the European Champions.h.i.+p with France. He wasn't just anybody, not by a long chalk, but I really screamed at him. I had reason to, and I mean, this was elite football, we weren't meant to be wiping each other's a.r.s.es.

"Shut up and run," he hissed.

"Just pa.s.s me the ball and I'll be quiet," I answered, and then we went for each other, and people had to come and separate us.

But honestly, it was nothing, it was just proof that we both had that winner's mindset. You can't be nice in this sport. If anybody knew that, it was Patrick Vieira. He's the type who gives a hundred per cent in every situation, and I saw how he boosted the entire team. There aren't many football players I have that kind of respect for. There was a brilliant quality to his play, and it was amazing to have him and Nedvd behind me in the midfield, and I got off to a good start in my second season with Juventus.

Against Roma I got a ball from Emerson right on the centre line, but I never brought it down. I backheeled it over Samuel Kuffour, the Roma defender. I backheeled it high and long, because I could see that Roma's end of the pitch was empty, and I rushed after it. I shot off like an arrow, and Kuffour tried to keep up. He didn't have a chance, he grabbed at my s.h.i.+rt and fell, and I brought the ball down on a half-volley, it bounced around my feet and Doni, the goalkeeper, rushed out and I shot bang a hard shot that thundered up in the corner of the goal. "Mamma mia, what a goal," as I said to the press afterwards, and it looked like it was going to be a good year.

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.