I Am Zlatan

by David Lagercrantz

  But still, how can I put it? The situation was getting tougher. My confidence was growing, and I was becoming more daring. I made a number of brilliant goals, and all the Brazilian skills I’d spent hour upon hour practising were starting to take hold. All the effort with that stuff was finally paying off. In the junior squad I’d mainly got a load of crap for it and heard the parents moaning. Oh, he’s dribbling again! He’s not playing for the team, and all that. But now there were cheers and applause coming from the stands, and I realised immediately that this was my chance. There might still be a lot of people complaining. But it’s not nearly as easy when we’re winning matches and the fans love me.

  The autograph-seekers and the fans’ roars and banners in the stands gave me strength, and I was really vibing. Away against Västerås, I got a pass from Hasse Mattisson. It was during injury time. The match was pretty much over. But I spotted a gap and chipped the ball over myself and a couple of opposing players, including Majstorović – that was a nice little one, and I could land the ball into the goal.

  I scored twelve goals in the Superettan League, more than anyone else at Malmö FF, and we qualified for the Allsvenskan League again. I was undoubtedly a big guy in the team. I wasn’t just an individualist, as some were saying. I was starting to make a difference, and the hysteria surrounding me kept growing, and in those days I didn’t just say a load of boring crap.

  I hadn’t had any bad run-ins with the press yet. I was basically myself around journalists and would tell them what kind of cars I wanted and which video games I played, and I said stuff like, “There’s only one Zlatan” and “Zlatan is Zlatan” – not the most modest things, and I guess I was viewed as something totally new. It wasn’t just the usual, “the ball is round”, type of thing.

  It was more free, from the heart. I just talked, pretty much like I did at home, and even Hasse admitted that I was popular and there were football scouts hiding in the bushes. “But you’ve got to keep a cool head,” he said.

  Later on, I found out that he got about a phone call a day from agents back then. I was a hot property, and I assume he already realised that I could be the saviour of the club’s finances. I was his pot of gold, as the newspapers would write later on, and one day he came up to me and asked, “What do you say we go on a little trip?”

  “Sure, sounds good!”

  It would be a little tour, he explained, around various clubs that were interested in purchasing me. I felt like, shit, it’s really starting to happen.

  6

  IN A WAY, I COULDN’T KEEP UP. Things had happened too fast. Only recently, I’d been a nuisance in the junior squad. Now everything was buzzing around me, and Hasse Borg and I went out to Arsenal’s training facility in St Albans, and you can just imagine.

  It was hallowed ground, and I saw Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp out on the pitch. But the really awesome thing was that I was going to meet Arsène Wenger. Wenger hadn’t been with the club for very long at that point. He was the first non-Englishman who’d been appointed as manager at Arsenal, and the newspapers had carried headlines like, ‘Arsène Who?’ Like, who the hell is Arsène Wenger? But straight away in his second season, he took home the double – both the league title and the FA Cup – and was hugely popular, and I felt like a little boy when we stepped into his office.

  It was me, Hasse Borg and an agent whose name I’ve forgotten, and I shivered a bit under Wenger’s gaze. It was like he was trying to see right through me, or size me up. He’s a bloke who draws up psychological profiles of his players – are they emotionally stable, and stuff like that. He is thorough, like all great coaches, and I didn’t say much at first.

  I just sat in silence and was bashful, but after a while I lost my patience. Something about Wenger set me off. He would leap up every so often to check who was outside his window. It seemed like he wanted to keep an eye on everything, and he kept going on about one thing all the time.

  “You can have a trial with us,” he said. “You can give it a try. You can test things out.” No matter how much I wanted to behave, those words set me off. I wanted to show him what I could do.

  “Give me a pair of boots. I’ll have a trial. I’ll do it right now,” I said. Then Hasse Borg interrupted me, saying, “Stop, stop, we’ll sort this out, you’re not going to have a trial, not at all,” and of course, I understood what he was getting at: either you’re interested, or you’re not. Having a trial means selling yourself short. It puts you in a weak position, so we said no: “We’re sorry, Mr Wenger, but we are not interested,” and of course there was a great deal of talk about that.

  But I’m sure it was the right decision, and we carried on to Monte Carlo, where Monaco were keen, but we said no to them as well, and to Verona, a sister club of Roma in Italy, and returned home. It had been an amazing trip, that’s for sure. But nothing concrete came out of it, and I suppose that wasn’t the intention anyway. I was mainly supposed to understand better how things worked down there on the Continent, and back in Malmö it was winter, freezing cold. I came down with flu.

  I’d been selected for the national Under-21 side. But I was forced to cancel my debut, and a number of scouts had to go home disappointed. The scouts were on my trail everywhere, though I wasn’t really aware of it. There was just one guy I knew a little. He was a Dane by the name of John Steen Olsen. He’d been checking me out for Ajax for so long I started to say hello to him. But I didn’t make a big deal of it. He was just a part of the whole circus, and I didn’t know what was just talk and what was really serious. Of course, the whole thing felt more real after our trip. But I still couldn’t quite believe it. I took it one day at a time, and I remember that I was looking forward to heading to training camp with Malmö FF.

  We were going to La Manga. It was early March, and my body felt light. The sun was shining. La Manga is a little strip of land off the south-eastern coast of Spain, a holiday resort with long sandy beaches and bars. On the mainland nearby there’s a sports facility where the big-name clubs train in the pre-season. I shared a room with Gudmundur Mete from Iceland. We’d moved up together since the boys’ team, and neither of us had been to a camp like this before. We didn’t know any of the rules, and when we arrived late for dinner the first night we got fined. We laughed about it for the most part, and the following morning we headed over to the training session. It was no big deal.

  But I noticed a familiar figure alongside the pitch. I gave a start: it was John Steen Olsen. Is he here as well? I called over, “Hi there!” Nothing more. I refused to get worked up. Those sorts were everywhere. I’d got used to them. But the following day there was another bloke there. I found out he was the chief scout from Ajax, and Hasse Borg seemed really stressed out.

  “Things are starting to happen now! Things are starting to happen now!” he said, to which I replied, “Okay, that’s good!”

  I just carried on playing. But it wasn’t exactly easy. Suddenly there were three guys from Ajax there. The assistant coach had also come, and I heard from Hasse Borg that more were on their way. It was nothing short of an invasion, and the next day we were going to face Moss, a Norwegian side, in a friendly match. Their head coach, Co Adriaanse, was also there, along with Leo Beenhakker, the sporting director.

  I didn’t know anything about Beenhakker then. I knew nothing about European football bosses in those days. But I could see straight away that that bloke was a big shot. He wore a hat in the sun and stood on the sidelines, smoking a fat cigar. He had curly white hair and, like, glinting eyes. People have likened him to the mad professor guy in Back to the Future, but if anything, Beenhakker is a harder version of him. Beenhakker radiated power and cool. He looked a little like a mafioso, and I like that. That’s the style I grew up with, and it didn’t surprise me at all that Beenhakker had coached Real Madrid, winning the league and the Cup with them. It was clear that he was the dominant figure and the decision-maker, a
nd people said he was able to see the potential in young players like nobody else, and I thought: wow, this is the real thing! But of course, there was a lot I didn’t realise. Beenhakker had made repeated attempts to get Hasse Borg to name a price for me. Hasse refused. He didn’t want to get locked into a figure.

  “The lad’s not for sale,” he said, and that was definitely smart. But it was a high-stakes game.

  Beenhakker informed him, “If I don’t get a price, I won’t come to La Manga!”

  “That’s your problem. Just forget about it in that case,” Hasse Borg replied, or at least that’s what he claims, and Beenhakker relented.

  He flew to Spain, and the first thing he would see was our match against Moss. I have no recollection of him on the sidelines afterwards. I only saw John Steen Olsen and the coach, Co Adriaanse, over by the opposing goal. But apparently Beenhakker had climbed up onto a shed beyond the goal line to get a better view, and of course, he must have been prepared to be disappointed. It wouldn’t have been the first time he had travelled a long way to see a talent that didn’t live up to expectations, and it wasn’t an important match either. There was no reason for anyone to make much of an effort, and maybe it would all just turn out to be a wild goose chase. No one knew. The Ajax blokes were chatting amongst themselves, and I felt a little nervous. I couldn’t keep still.

  Early on in the first half I got a pass from the right. I was just outside the penalty area, and we were in our pale blue kit. The clock read 15:37 if you go by the flickering video recording that’s up on YouTube. It was warm, but there was a good breeze blowing in from the coast, and it didn’t look like a critical situation. The play was cautious. But I saw a gap – a chance. It was one of those images that just pop into my head, one of those flashbulb moments that whizz into your thoughts, which I’ve never been able to explain properly. Football isn’t something you plan in advance. Football just happens, and as soon as I got the ball I chipped it over a defender, one of those little lobs that you instantly feel is perfect, and then I just went for it. I accelerated past two defenders and reached the ball a few metres inside the penalty area, ideally positioned for a backheel.

  I backheeled it over another defender, ran up and shot with my left foot on the volley, and for a moment you’re left wondering, you have time to think even though everything happens in under a tenth of a second: Will it go in? Will it miss? But no, it just sailed in. That was one of the most beautiful goals I’d scored, and I ran out across the pitch, screaming with my arms stretched wide. The journalists who were there were convinced I was shouting, “Zlatan, Zlatan!” But come on, why would I be shouting my own name? I was yelling, “Showtime, showtime!”

  That was a ‘showtime’ goal, and I can just imagine what Beenhakker was thinking. I bet he was bowled over. He’d probably never seen anything like it. But later on I found out that it also made him worried. He’d found what he was looking for: a big player who was dangerous around the goaland technical, who’d just scored an epic goal as if to order. But he was smart enough to realise that with this performance my value had rocketed, and if any other big clubs had spies around the pitch there would be a crazy bidding war, so Leo Beenhakker resolved to act immediately. He jumped down from the roof of the shed and went to find Hasse Borg.

  “I want to meet that guy right now,” he said – because you know, in the football world it’s never just about the player; it’s about the person as well. It’s no good if someone’s a brilliant player if he’s got the wrong attitude. You’re buying the whole package.

  “I don’t know if that’s possible,” said Hasse Borg.

  “What do you mean, not possible?”

  “We might not have time. We’ve got loads of activities and things like that!”

  Beenhakker was fuming, because of course he knew what was going on.

  There were no bloody activities. Hasse Borg must have been creaming himself. The bloke had just been handed every trump card in the deck, and now he wanted to seem difficult and play out every one of his tricks.

  “Eh? What are you talking about? He’s a young kid. You’re at your training camp. Of course there’s time.”

  “Maybe just a little while, then,” said Hasse Borg, or something like that, and so they agreed that we would meet at the Ajax crew’s hotel, which was some distance away.

  We drove there. In the car, Hasse Borg stressed how important it was for me to convey a good, positive attitude. But I was relaxed. Ajax might have wanted to buy me and sure, that was definitely big, and some other time I probably would have been nervous.

  I wasn’t used to big shots from abroad in those days, much less big business deals. But after a goal like that, you’re king of the world. It was easy to turn on the charm. Hasse Borg and I went into their hotel and shook hands with the whole crew, went “How do you do” and talked about this and that, and I smiled and said I was really committed to football and I knew it was hard work, all that kind of thing. It was a little theatre performance where everybody was displaying their goodwill. But there were definitely serious and suspicious undertones. Everybody was checking me out, thinking: who is he, really? The main thing I remember is Leo Beenhakker. He leaned forward and said, “If you fuck with me I’ll fuck you two times back,” and – well, that made an impression on me.

  Beenhakker was speaking my language, and he had a glint in his eye. But clearly, he and his guys had done their homework. They probably knew everything about me, even that episode in Industrigatan. Not that it crossed my mind then. But his words could be interpreted as a warning, right, and I recall that we went back to our hotel very shortly afterwards, and I remember I was barely able to sit still.

  There’s one game on the pitch.

  There’s another on the transfer market, and I like them both, and I know quite a few tricks. I know when to keep my mouth shut and when to do battle. But I’ve learnt the hard way. In the beginning, I knew nothing. I was just a kid who wanted to play football, and after that meeting in La Manga I didn’t hear a single word about Ajax, not for a while.

  I went home, and in those days I was driving around in a convertible Merc – not the one I’d ordered, but a loaner I was given while I was waiting for the actual one, and I don’t think I was heading anywhere in particular. I was just cruising round, feeling like a pretty cool dude, and there was a miniature football in the back seat in case I felt like practising some moves. In other words, it was a completely ordinary day in Malmö.

  There were still a few weeks to go until the Allsvenskan season opener, and I was going to play with the Under-21 national side in Borås, but otherwise things were quiet. I just went to training sessions and stuff, and hung out with my mates and played video games. Then the phone rang. It was Hasse Borg. Nothing strange about that. We phoned each other often. But this time he sounded different.

  “Are you busy?” he asked, and I couldn’t exactly say that I was.

  “But are you ready? Are you good to go?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “They’re here now.”

  “Who are?”

  “Ajax. Come to the St Jörgen Hotel. We’re waiting for you,” he said, and sure, naturally, I drove there.

  Jag parked outside the hotel, and of course my heart was pounding. I realised things were happening now, and I had told Hasse Borg that I wanted to be sold for a record sum. I wanted to go down in history. There was a Swedish player who had been signed by Arsenal for 40 million kronor, which was a lot in those days, and a Norwegian by the name of John Carew who Valencia had paid 70 million kronor for. That was a record in Scandinavia, and I was hoping to beat it. But my God, I was nineteen years old.

  It wasn’t easy to be tough when the chips were really down – and remember, we wore tracksuits on the council estate. Sure, I’d tried out different looks when I was at Borgarskolan. But now I was back in Nike gear again and had a little cap on, and i
t was all wrong. When I walked into the St Jörgen I was greeted by John Steen Olsen, and of course, I realised that everything was top secret. Ajax is a corporation listed on the stock exchange, and this would be insider information if anything got out. But just then I caught sight of Cecilia Persson, and stopped short. What was Cecilia doing there? I wasn’t expecting to bump into people from Rosengård at the St Jörgen Hotel. It was a different world. It was a long way from the council estate. But there she was.

  She and I had grown up in the same block of flats; she was the daughter of my mum’s best friend. But suddenly I remembered that she worked in the hotel as a cleaner. She was a cleaner just like Mum, and now she was eyeing me suspiciously, like: what’s Zlatan doing here with these guys? I shushed her, like, don’t say anything! I went up in the lift and entered a conference room, and there were a load of suits standing there: Beenhakker, his finance guy, and then Hasse Borg of course and I realised straight away that there was something dodgy about the atmosphere in there.

  Hasse was really nervous and on edge, he was full of adrenaline, but of course he was playing it cool: “Hi there, lad! You understand we can’t say a word about this yet. But do you want to go to Ajax? They want you.” Even though I’d had my suspicions, it blew me away.

  “Definitely!” I replied, “Ajax is a great training ground.” Then everybody nodded, and there was lots of smiling and stuff.

  But even so, there was still something weird in there, and I shook people’s hands and was told that I would now negotiate my personal contract, and for some reason Beenhakker and his guys left at that point, leaving me on my own with Hasse Borg. What the hell was going on with Hasse? He had a huge wad of snus tucked inside his lip, and he showed me a stack of papers.