I Am Zlatan Part 19

Everyone in the room gulped, and I could tell they were thinking, how come he's coming out with this stuff now? But believe me, I needed to say it. Something happened in my head then. I got my motivation back. Just the thought of being able to do my thing again got me fired up that's the truth.

When I'd put my signature on that doc.u.ment and said those words, I became myself again. It was like waking up from a nightmare, and for the first time in a long while I was itching to play football. All those thoughts of quitting were gone, and after that I entered a phase when I played out of sheer joy. Or rather, I played out of sheer joy and sheer rage, joy at having escaped from Bara and rage that a single person had destroyed my dream.

It was like I'd been set free, and I also began to see the whole thing more clearly. When I was caught up in the middle of it, I'd mainly tried to buck myself up: it's not that bad, I'll get back in, I'll show them. I kept that up all the time. But then, when it really was over, I realised it had been tough. It had been hard. The person who was supposed to mean the most to me as a footballer had given me the cold shoulder, completely, and that was worse than most stuff I'd been through. I'd been under immense pressure, and in situations like that you need your coach.

But what did I have? A guy who avoided me. A guy who tried to treat me as if I didn't exist. I was supposed to be a huge star. But instead I'd gone round there feeling unwelcome. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, I'd been with Mourinho and Capello, the two most disciplined managers in the world, and I'd never had any problems with them. But then this Guardiola ... I was seething when I thought about it, and I'll never forget when I told Mino: "He wrecked everything."

"Zlatan," he replied.

"Yeah?"

"Dreams can come true and make you happy."

"Yeah."

"But dreams can also come true and kill you," and I realised immediately that was true.

A dream had both come true and been crushed at Bara, and I continued down the stairs towards the sea of journalists waiting outside, and that's when it came to me: I didn't want to call that guy by his real name. I needed something else, and I remembered all the drivel he'd spouted, and suddenly there outside Camp Nou in Barcelona, it came to me. The Philosopher!

I would call him the Philosopher.

"Ask the Philosopher what the problem is," I said with every sc.r.a.p of pride and rage inside my being.

26.

THERE WAS A HUGE UPROAR, and I remember something Maxi said afterwards or two things, actually. The first thing was just funny. He asked, "Why is everybody looking at you, Daddy?" and I tried to explain the situation: "Daddy plays football. People see me on TV and they think I'm good," and I felt proud afterwards Daddy's pretty cool. Then things took a different turn. It was our nanny who told us.

Maxi had asked why everybody was looking at him, because of course, that was something he got a lot during those days, especially when he arrived with me in Milan and worst of all, he added: "I don't like it when they look at me like that." I'm sensitive to stuff like that. Was he going to start feeling different now, too? I hate it when children feel they're being singled out, also because it brings back so much of my own childhood: Zlatan doesn't belong here. He's this. He's that. All that's still inside me.

I tried to spend a lot of time with Maxi and Vincent during that time. They're terrific, wild kids. But it wasn't easy. Things were going crazy. After I spoke to the journalists outside Camp Nou I drove home to Helena.

She probably hadn't been expecting to have to move house again so soon, and I bet she would've liked to stay. But she knew better than anyone that if I'm not doing well on the football pitch, I just wilt. It affects everybody in the family, so I told Galliani: I want to go to Milan with the whole gang Helena, the boys, the dog and Mino. Galliani nodded, si, si. Everybody come along! He'd clearly organised something really special, so we all hopped on one of the club's private planes and left Barcelona. I remember when we landed at Milan Linate airport. It was like Obama was coming or something. There were eight black Audis lined up in front of us and a red carpet was rolled out, and I went out carrying Vincent in my arms.

For a couple of minutes I was interviewed by a few selected journalists, guys from the Milan Channel and Sky and some others, and on the other side of the fence there were hundreds of screaming fans. It was great. I could feel it in the air. The club had been waiting a long time for this. Five years earlier, when Berlusconi had booked a table for me and him at Ristorante Giannino, people had thought everything was done and dusted and they'd made all sorts of preparations, including putting a thing on the website, an elaborate thing that first was black, and then there was a light in the centre, and it went boom, boom, like serious sound effects, just before my name appeared Ibrahimovic, like a flas.h.i.+ng, thundering streamer, and then the words 'Finally ours'.

It was crazy, and they put that thing up now, and clearly n.o.body was prepared for the level of interest. The website crashed. It totally went down, and I remember walking past the fences at the airport where the fans stood shouting my name, 'Ibra, Ibra'.

Then I got into one of the Audis and we drove through the city. It was chaos, I'm telling you. It was like, Zlatan has landed. There were cars and scooters and TV cameras after us, and sure, I got a buzz out of it. The adrenaline was pumping, and I realised even more the kind of black hole I'd been living in at Bara. It was like I'd been locked up in jail and then greeted by a festival outside the prison walls, and everywhere I sensed one thing: all of Milan had been waiting for me, and they wanted me to take charge. I was going to lead them to trophies again, and honestly, I liked it.

The street outside the Boscolo Hotel where we were going to be staying was cordoned off. All around Milan residents were shouting and waving, and inside the hotel, the management stood in a row and bowed. In Italy, footballers are like G.o.ds, and we were given the deluxe suite. We could tell straight away: everything was really well organised. This was a solid club with traditions, and honestly, my body was trembling. I wanted to play football. That same day, AC Milan were playing against Lecce in the Serie A season opener and I asked Galliani if I could play.

It wasn't possible. My papers hadn't been finalised. But I still went to the stadium. I was going to be introduced at half-time, and I'll never forget that feeling. I didn't want to go into the changing room. I didn't want to disturb the players as they regrouped. But there was a lounge just next door, so I sat in there with Galliani and Berlusconi and some other bigwigs.

"You remind me of a player I used to have," Berlusconi said.

Of course I could guess who he was talking about, but I wanted to be polite.

"Who's that?" I said.

"A guy who could take care of situations on his own."

He was talking about van Basten, of course, and then he welcomed me into the club: "It's a great honour," and all that stuff, and then we went up into the stands. I had to sit two places away from him for some political reason or other. There's always loads going on around that guy. But it was pretty calm then, at least compared to what followed. Two months later the whole circus surrounding Berlusconi blew up, with rumours of young girls and court cases. But now he sat there and seemed pleased, and I started to feel the vibes. People were screaming my name again and I went down onto the pitch, and they rolled out a red carpet and put up a little stage down there, and I waited on the sideline for a long time, at least that's what it felt like. The stadium was at boiling point. San Siro was full to capacity even though it was August and the holiday season, and I stepped out onto the pitch. There was a roar all around me, and I was like a little boy again. It wasn't long since I'd stood in Camp Nou in the same situation, and then I went out to all the cheering and applause, and there were a load of kids standing by the red carpet. I gave them all high fives, and stepped up onto the stage.

"Now we're going to win everything," I said in Italian, and the roar got even louder.

The stadium was shaking, and afterwards I got a match s.h.i.+rt. It had my name on it, but no number. I didn't have a number yet. I'd been given a few to choose from, but none of them were any good and I there was a chance I could get the 11, which Klaas-Jan Huntelaar currently had. Huntelaar was on the transfer list, but because he hadn't been sold yet, I'd have to wait. In any case, it was starting now. Now I was going to make sure AC Milan won their first Scudetto in seven years. A new era of glory was about to begin. That's what I'd promised.

Both me and Helena had bodyguards, and some people might think, what kind of luxury is that? But it's no luxury. In Italy, football stars are surrounded by hysteria, the pressure is terrible and some bad things had happened, not just that fire outside our door in Turin. When I was at Inter and was going to play a match at San Siro, Sanela came to visit us. She and Helena drove to the stadium in our big new Mercedes. There was chaos and traffic jams outside the stadium. Helena could only inch forwards in the car, and people around her had plenty of time to gawp in and see who she was. Then a guy on a Vespa drove past a little too fast and a little too close and clipped her wing mirror.

In that situation, Helena couldn't tell whether it was intentional or not. It was more like, oh no, what's he done? She opened the window to adjust the mirror and saw something out of the corner of her eye: another guy in a cycle helmet was rus.h.i.+ng towards her and then she realised: this is something dodgy a trap. She tried to close the window, but it was a new car and she wasn't familiar with all the controls so she didn't manage to get the window up in time. The guy came up and punched her in the face.

It turned into a vicious scuffle and the Merc crashed into the car in front, and the guy tried to pull her out through the window. But fortunately Sanela was there. She grabbed hold of Helena's body and held her in it was completely crazy. It was a tug-of-war for life or death, that's what it felt like, and finally Sanela was able to drag Helena back inside the car, and then Helena managed to turn herself round somehow.

She landed a kick in the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's face from an impossible angle, and she had on, like, four-inch heels. That must have hurt like h.e.l.l, and the guy ran off. People had started to gather round the car. It was absolute chaos, and Helena was bruised.

It could have ended really badly. There have been a few things like that, unfortunately. That's the truth. We needed protection. Anyway, my bodyguard, a good guy, drove me out to Milanello, the club's training facility, on the first day.

I was getting all the usual medical exams. Milanello is nearly an hour's drive from Milan, and of course there were fans waiting down by the gates when we drove in. I felt the weight of all the traditions at Milan, and I greeted all the legends in the squad: Zambrotta, Nesta, Ambrosini, Gattuso, Pirlo, Abbiati, Seedorf, Inzaghi, Pato the young Brazilian, and Allegri, the coach, who'd just arrived from Cagliari and didn't have much experience, but who seemed good. Sometimes when you're new in the gang, you're called into question. There's a fight for your place in the pecking order, like, you think you're the star here? But here, I could sense it immediately. I got respect straight away. Actually, maybe I shouldn't say this, but a number of players told me afterwards: We got a 20 per cent boost when you came. You brought us out of the shadows. AC Milan hadn't just been having a tough time in the league the last few years. The club hadn't been the best side in the city for a long time, either.

Inter had dominated. Inter had dominated ever since I arrived at the club in 2006 with all that att.i.tude I'd got from Capello, which somehow said: training sessions are just as important as matches. You can't train soft and play aggressive. You've got to do battle every minute, otherwise I'll come after you. I went round trying to give encouragement and joke around with the guys, everything that had come naturally to me everywhere except at Barcelona. In a way, it reminded me of my early days at Inter. Lead us, lead us, the guys seemed to be saying, and I thought: now the balance of power is going to wobble a little again. I went into every training session incredibly fired up, and just like I'd done before Barcelona I screamed at people. I made noise and I yelled. I made fun of the ones who lost, and people said to me, what's going on? We haven't seen the guys this fired up in ages.

There was another new guy in the team. His name was Robson de Souza, but people called him Robinho. I'd been involved in that transaction. Galliani had asked me while I was still at Barcelona: "What do you think of Robinho? Can you play with him?"

"A brilliant player, just bring him here. The rest will work itself out."

The club paid 18 million euro for him, which was seen as cheap, and Galliani gained a lot of prestige for that as well. He'd managed to buy both me and Robinho at knock-down prices. Not long ago, Manchester City had paid far more than twice that for Robinho. But the purchase had been something of a risk. Robinho was a prodigy who'd lost his way a bit. There's no greater G.o.d in Brazil than Pele, and in the '90s he was in charge of the Santos youth organisation Santos FC had been Pele's home club and they'd been going through a rough patch for many years. People dreamt that he'd discover a new super-talent, though not many believed it would really happen. A new Pele! A new Ronaldo, the kind of player that only comes along a few times in a hundred years. But even in the first training session, Pele just stood there, totally blown away. He even called time out, so the story goes, and went over to a skinny, impoverished kid on the pitch.

"I'm about ready to cry," he said. "You remind me of myself."

That was Robinho, a guy who grew up and became the big star everybody was waiting for, at least at first. He was sold to Real Madrid and later to Manchester City, but more recently he'd had quite a bit of negative publicity. There had been a lot of drama surrounding him. We became close at AC Milan. We were two guys who'd grown up in difficult circ.u.mstances, and there were parallels in our lives. We'd both received b.o.l.l.o.c.kings because we dribbled too much, and I loved his technique. But he was a little too unfocused on the pitch, and did too many tricks on his own over near the touchline.

I was on him a lot about that. I was on everybody in the team, and before my first match away at Cesena I was sizzling with energy, and you can imagine the hype surrounding me. The papers wrote page after page: now I was going to show what I meant for my new club.

It was me, Pato and Ronaldinho in front, and that seemed strong. Robinho started on the bench. But it was useless. I was in overdrive, just like in my early days at Ajax. I wanted too much, so we ended up with too little, and at half-time we were behind Cesena, 20. Losing to Cesena, when we were AC Milan! That was mental, and I was angry and completely crazy on the pitch. But d.a.m.n it, nothing worked. I worked like a dog, and towards the end we got a penalty. Who knows, maybe we could turn it around? I was going to take the penalty, and I stepped up and shot into the goalpost. We lost, and how do you think I felt? I had to do a doping test after the match, and I came into the room so furious that I trashed a table, and the doping guy in there was totally terrified.

"Calm down, calm down."

"Listen," I said. "You don't tell me what to do. Otherwise you could end up like that table down there."

That wasn't a nice thing to do; he was an innocent doping tester. But that's the att.i.tude I brought to Milan, and when we lost, the red mist descended. That's when you need to leave me to wreck stuff in peace. I was boiling with rage, and was just happy when the papers had a go at me the next day and gave me miserable reviews. I deserved it, and I clenched my fists. But things didn't loosen up in the next match either, or the one after that, even though I scored my first goal away against Lazio, and it looked like we were going to win. But in the final minutes we let in an equaliser, and that time there was no doping check.

I went straight into the changing room where there was a whiteboard that the manager writes the game plans on, and I kicked it with all my strength. The board went flying like a missile and struck a player.

"Don't play with fire. It's dangerous," I roared, and the room went silent, because I guess everybody understood exactly what I meant: we were supposed to win, nothing else, and we b.l.o.o.d.y well shouldn't let in any unnecessary goals at the end. We couldn't carry on like that.

After four matches we had only five points, and Inter were at the top of the league table, same as always, and I was feeling more and more pressure resting on my shoulders. We were still living in the Boscolo Hotel, and we'd managed to settle in a bit. Helena, who had been staying out of the public eye, gave her first interview. It was for Elle magazine, and that became a complete circus. Every word about us made headlines. I could say totally meaningless stuff, like, "There's been less meatb.a.l.l.s and noodles since I met Helena." In the papers that became Zlatan's great declaration of love for Helena, and it felt more and more like I was changing. Me, who'd always got a buzz from being the centre of attention I was starting to become more shy and retiring.

I didn't like having too many people around me, and we led a quiet life. I stayed indoors, and after a few months we moved into an apartment the club had arranged for us in the city centre. That was nice, of course, but it didn't have our furniture and our things it was nice, but really impersonal. In the mornings the bodyguard would be waiting for me down in the foyer and we'd drive out to Milanello, and I'd get breakfast before training and lunch afterwards, and then there'd often be a load of PR stuff, having photos taken and things, and as always in Italy I was away from the family a lot. We stayed in hotels ahead of our away matches, and we'd be shut up at Milanello before our home battles, and that's when I started to get that feeling.

I was missing out on a lot at home, Vincent was getting bigger, he was talking more and more. It was crazy, really. Maxi and Vincent had moved round so much they spoke three languages fluently: Swedish, Italian and English.

Life was entering a new phase, and I often thought, what will I do when my career is over, and Helena starts hers up again? I had some thoughts like that. Sometimes I longed for the time after football. Sometimes I didn't.

But I was no less fired up, and very soon things also loosened up on the pitch. I decided seven, eight matches in a row, and the old ecstasy and hysteria returned. It was 'Ibra, Ibra' everywhere. The papers made this photo montage. There was me, and then the whole team above, as if I was carrying all of AC Milan on my shoulders. It was that sort of talk. I was hotter than ever.

But there was one thing I knew better than most at this point: in football you can be a G.o.d one day and completely worthless the next, and our biggest league match that autumn was approaching, the Milan derby against Inter at San Siro. There wasn't exactly any doubt that the Ultra fans were going to hate me. The pressure was going to get even greater. On top of that, I had issues with a guy in the team. His name was Oguchi Onyewu, he was an American the size of a house, and I told a mate in the squad: "Something serious is gonna happen. I just feel it."

27.

PEOPLE SAID HE WAS the nicest guy in the world. Oguchi Onyewu resembled a heavyweight boxer. He was nearly six foot five and weighed over 15 stone, close to 100 kilograms. Even though he didn't gain a place in the starting team, he'd previously been voted the best foreign player of the year in the Belgian First Division and the US soccer player of the year. But he couldn't handle me. He wanted to have a go at me.

"I'm not like the other defenders," he said.

"Okay, good for you then!"

"I'm not gonna be psyched out by your trash talking. By your mouth that's going all the time."

"What are you talking about?"

"You. I've seen you in matches, you do nothing but trash-talk," he continued, and that annoyed me.

Not just because I was sick of all the defenders who want to provoke me. I'm not the one who trash-talks, either. I get my revenge on the pitch. I've heard so much s.h.i.+t over the years, f.u.c.king Gypsy, stuff about my mum, all that stuff. The worst is: I'll see you after the match! What the h.e.l.l is that? Are we going to sort it out in the car park? It's ridiculous. I remember Giorgio Chiellini, a centre back at Juventus. We'd played together, and later on when I was at Inter Milan we met on the pitch and he was on me all the time: "Come on now, it's not like it was before, is it?" He tried to provoke me, and then he tackled me from behind. You realise, that's a cowardly thing to do. You don't see the bloke coming, and I went down in pain. I was in a lot of pain. But I didn't say anything. I don't in those situations. I think: I'll get you back in our next encounter. Then I'll go at him so hard he doesn't get up for a long time. So no way, I'm not the one who trash-talks. I tackle instead. I go off like a bomb in encounters. But I didn't get an opportunity that time, so after the final whistle I went up to him and took hold of his head and dragged him like a disobedient dog, and Chiellini got scared, I could see it.

"You wanted to fight. So how come you're s.h.i.+tting yourself now," I hissed, and headed off to the changing room.

No, I retaliate with my body, not with words, and I said that to Oguchi Onyewu as well. But he just kept on, and once when I yelled, "That was no free kick!" he shushed me with his finger, like, see, you're just talking s.h.i.+t, and I thought: I've had enough, that's it.

"You, pa.s.s it," I said.

He shushed me again, and I saw red. But I didn't say anything, not a word. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d was going to find out how I trash-talk in these situations, and the next time he got the ball I rushed towards him and jumped up with my feet and studs out in front, the worst type of tackle. But he saw me. He leapt out of the way and we both crashed to the ground, and my first thought was, s.h.i.+t, I've missed. I'll get him next time. But as I got up and walked away I felt a blow to my shoulder. Not a good idea, Oguchi Onyewu.

I headb.u.t.ted him, and then we flew at each other. I'm not talking about a little sc.r.a.p. We wanted to tear each other limb from limb. It was brutal, we were two blokes who each weighed over 14 stone, and we were rolling round, punching and kneeing each other, and of course, the whole team rushed over and tried to separate us. That wasn't easy, not at all. We were crazy and furious, and sure, of course, I admit you need adrenaline on the pitch, you've got to do battle. But this crossed the line. It was like life and death. But the weirdest thing happened afterwards.

Oguchi Onyewu started praying to G.o.d with tears in his eyes. He made the sign of the cross, and I thought, what is this? I got even more furious. If felt like a provocation, and at that point Allegri, the manager, came up and said, "Calm down, Ibra." It didn't do any good. I just moved him out of the way and ran towards Oguchi again. But I was stopped by my teammates, and I suppose that was a good thing. It could have turned out nasty, and afterwards Allegri summoned us both in. We shook hands and apologised. But Oguchi was cold as a fish, and that was fine by me. If he's cold, I'll be cold back, no problem, and afterwards I was driven home. I phoned Galliani, the boss, and there's one thing you should know, which is that I don't like to blame other people. It's unmanly. It's a s.h.i.+tty thing to do, especially in a team where you've taken on the role of a leader.

"Listen," I told Galliani. "An unfortunate thing happened at the training session. It was my fault, and I take responsibility. I want to apologise, and you can give me whatever punishment you want."

"Ibra," he said. "This is Milan. We don't work like that. You've apologised. Now we move on."

But it wasn't over, not yet. There had been supporters along the sidelines, and the whole thing was in all the papers. n.o.body knew the background story. But the fight became public knowledge. It took ten people to pull us apart, they wrote, and there was talk of unrest in the team and Ibra the bad boy and all the usual stuff. I didn't care. Write what you want! But I was like, s.h.i.+t, my chest hurts, so we had it checked out. I'd broken a rib in the fight, and there's nothing you can do about a broken rib. The doctors just bandaged me up.

That was hardly the best thing that could have happened. Things were gearing up for the derby against Inter. We had Pato and Inzaghi injured, and of course the papers wrote pages and pages about it, not least of all about the duel between me and Materazzi. It was going to be particularly vicious, they said. Not just because Materazzi was a tough guy and we'd fought in the past and played in the same team. Materazzi had mocked me for kissing my Bara crest at Camp Nou. It was this and it was that. Most of it was just talk, but one thing was certain: Materazzi was going to go after me hard, because that was his job. It was important that the team stopped me, and in those situations there's only one way to respond. You've got to hit back just as hard. Otherwise you lose the upper hand and risk getting hurt.

No supporters are worse than Inter Milan's Ultras. They're not forgiving types, believe me, and to them I was Public Enemy Number One. n.o.body had forgotten our fight from the Lazio match, and of course I knew there would be boos and trash talk. But b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, that stuff is part of it.

I wasn't the first Inter player who'd signed to AC Milan, either. I was in good company. Ronaldo joined Milan in 2007, and then the Inter crew handed out whistles to put him off. The matches between Inter and AC Milan, known as the Derby della Madonnina, always stir up a lot of emotions, and there's politics and s.h.i.+t involved as well. It's a huge rivalry.

It's like Real Madrid and Bara in Spain, and I remember the players in the stadium. You could see it in their faces. This was big. This was important. We were at the top of the league table then, and a win would mean a lot. AC Milan hadn't won a derby in several years. Inter had also brought home the Champions League trophy that year. It was Inter who dominated. But if... if we won, that would signal a s.h.i.+ft in power, and I could hear the roar of the crowd in the stadium and music blaring from the loudspeakers. There was an atmosphere of hate and carnival at the same time, and I wasn't nervous, exactly.

I was just fired up. I sat and hoped I'd get to run in and do battle. But of course, I knew you can be bursting with adrenaline. You can still end up completely outside the game and not get a thing out of it. You never know, and I clearly remember the start of the match and the roar in there at San Siro. You never really get used to it. The place is at boiling point all around you, and Seedorf had a header over the goal almost straight away. The game surged back and forth.

In the fifth minute I got a ball from the right side. I dribbled and got into the penalty area, and I had Materazzi on me. Of course, Materazzi wanted to, like, come right out and say: You're not gonna get away, just you wait! But he made a mistake. He brought me down and I crashed down onto the ground, and obviously I thought: is that a penalty? Is that a penalty?

It should've been. But I didn't know. There was a horrible racket, and of course all the Inter players thrust out their arms, like, what the h.e.l.l? But the referee ran towards the penalty spot and I took a deep breath. I was the one who was going to take it, and you can just imagine. My team were behind me, and you don't have to wonder what they were thinking: don't miss, Ibra! For G.o.d's sake, don't miss this one!

In front of me was the goal, and the goalkeeper, and behind them were Inter's Ultra fans. They were insane. They were booing and screaming. They were doing everything they could to derail me, and some of them had laser pointers. I got a green light right in my face, and Zambrotta blew up. He went to the referee: "b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, they're interfering with Ibra. They're blinding him!"

But what could they do? Search through the whole stand? That wouldn't work, and I was totally focused. They could've put me under headlights and spotlights. I just wanted to go up and shoot, and this time I knew exactly how it would go: the ball would go into the goalie's right corner, and I stood still for a couple of seconds, and sure, it was like a little twinge inside me: I had to score. I'd started my season by blowing a penalty. It couldn't happen again. But I couldn't think about that. You can never think too much on the pitch. You just have to play, and I ran up and shot.

I shot exactly as I'd imagined, and it went in, and I raised my arms up and looked the Ultra fans straight in the eyes, like: your d.a.m.ned tricks don't work. I'm stronger than that, and I've got to say, when the entire stadium roared and I saw up on the big screen, 'Inter AC Milan, 01, Ibrahimovic', that felt good. I was back in Italy.

But even so, we were just a few minutes into the match, and the fight was intensifying. In the 60th minute we had Abate sent off, and it's no fun playing with 10 men against Inter Milan. We were working like dogs. Materazzi was on me like a leech, and in one encounter a few minutes later I rushed towards the ball and slammed into him and totally floored him. It was unintentional, of course. But he was still lying on the ground, and the doctor and all the Inter players ran out, and the hatred from the Ultra fans just grew, especially when Materazzi was stretchered off.

In the final 20 minutes, the pressure on us was terrible, and I was completely worn out. I was ready to vomit from exhaustion. But we made it. We held on to our lead and won. The next day I was due to receive my fifth Guldbollen award in Sweden. I'd found out about it in advance, and I really wanted to get to bed early, as early as it's possible to do when you've got a match like that spinning round in your head. But we decided we'd go out and party at the Cavalli nightclub. Helena came along. We sat pretty quietly in a corner with Gattuso while Pirlo, Ambrosini and all the rest partied like nutters. There was such a sense of relief everywhere, and really crazy joy, and we didn't get home until four in the morning.

In December, AC Milan purchased Antonio Ca.s.sano. Ca.s.sano has something of a reputation as a bad boy like me, he likes to be seen and to talk about what a brilliant player he is. The guy's been through a lot and has often got into fights with players and managers, including Capello at Roma. Capello even coined a new term: Ca.s.sanata, which means sort of like irrational and crazy. But Ca.s.sano has a brilliant quality to his playing. I really liked him, and we got better and better as a team.

But there was a problem. The feeling crept up on me. I was starting to feel burnt out. I'd given a hundred per cent in every match, and I don't think I'd ever felt such pressure before. That might sound strange when you think of everything I'd been through. It'd been tough, joining Bara. It hadn't been easy at Inter, either. But I was feeling it here more than ever before: we had to win the league t.i.tle, and I was the one who was supposed to lead the team. I was playing every match basically as if it were a World Cup final, and I was paying the price. I was getting worn out.

Eventually I wasn't able to follow through on my ideas and images on the pitch. My body was a step behind, and I'm sure I should have sat out a match or two. But Allegri was new. He wanted to win at any price, too. He needed his Zlatan and he was squeezing every drop out of me. Not that I blame him for a second.

He was just doing his job, and I wanted to play. I'd found my flow. I had a rhythm. I would've wanted to play even with a broken leg, and Allegri got me going. We had respect for each other. But I was paying a price, and I wasn't as young as I used to be.

I was physically big not like in my second season at Juventus, not at all. There was no junk food, no excess weight. I was careful about what I ate. It was all muscle, but I was older and a different player to what I'd been at the start of my career. I was no longer a dribbler, no Ajax guy. I was a heavy, explosive striker, and I was forced to play smarter in order to last through the whole match, and in February I was starting to feel tired.

It was supposed to be a secret within the club, but it got out to the press and there was a lot of talk about it. Will he last? Can he cope? We also started losing late in a number of matches. We couldn't go the distance, and we conceded a whole load of unnecessary goals, and I went a whole month without scoring at all. My body was missing that real explosiveness, and we crashed out of the Champions League against Tottenham, and of course that was hard I thought we were the better team. But we lost our initiative in the Italian league as well, and Inter were on top form again.

Were they going to overtake us? Would we lose the grip we'd had on the league? There was some talk of that. The papers wrote about every possible scenario, and my red cards didn't help anything. The first one was against Bari, one of the bottom teams. We were trailing 10, and I was standing in the penalty area; a defender was holding me in and I felt trapped. I reacted instinctively. I lashed out with my open hand and smacked him in the stomach, and he went down completely idiotic of me. I admit it.

But it was a reflex, nothing more, and I wish I had a better explanation. I didn't. Football is a fight. You come under attack and you strike back, and sometimes you go too far without knowing why. I've done that many times. Over the years, I've learnt a lot. I'm not the crazy kid at Malm FF any longer, but that stuff will never leave me entirely. My winner's mindset has a downside. I go spare, and that time against Bari I got a red card. A red card can make anybody go off on one. But I left the pitch immediately without saying a word. Ca.s.sano equalised not long after. That was rea.s.suring. But b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, I got a ban, not just the next match against Palermo, but in the next derby against Inter Milan as well.

The AC Milan management tried to protest. There was a huge fuss about it. But it didn't work, and that was a b.l.o.o.d.y disgrace, of course. But I didn't take it as hard as I would have done in the past. That's the truth. My family helped there. It doesn't work to get too down any more. I have to be there for my kids. But my rage continued. I played again against Fiorentina, and it looked like I was going to behave. We were ahead with just a few minutes remaining. Then I got a throw-in against me. I was furious and screamed "vaffanculo", which means sort of like 'go to h.e.l.l', at the referee and sure, that wasn't good, especially with regard to what had happened against Bari. But come on! Have you been there on the pitch? People say vaffanculo and things like that all the time. They don't get sent off because of it. They don't get a ban for several matches. The referees let it pa.s.s, at least most of the time.