eing on my own wasn’t really a big thing. Growing up I had learned to take care of myself, and I still felt like the coolest kid in Europe, kind of.

I had become a pro and was sold for sick amounts. But my house was also empty. It felt far away and I didn’t have any furniture that gave me a feeling of being in a home, and honestly, soon enough my fridge started to get empty as well. Not that I had the biggest panic because of it and had flashes of my childhood or anything. I was cool. I had empty fridges in my flat in Lorensborg as well. I was used to everything. But on the other hand in Malmö I had never had be hungry because of it, not only because I ate like an idiot in Kulan, the restaurant in MFF, and often stole some food with me under the overall, stuff that kept me on my feet at nights, but also because I had my mom and my friends.

In Malmö I didn’t have to cook any food, or worry about empty fridges. But now in Diemen I was back on square one. It was ridiculous. I was going to be a serious guy. But I didn’t even have cornflakes at home, and hardly a dime in my pocket, and I sat there in my house on my Hästen bed and called pretty much everyone I knew; friends, dad, mom, little brother and sis. I even called Mia, even though we had broken up: Like, can’t you come over? I was lonely, restless and hungry and eventually I got a hold of Hasse Borg.

I figured that he could make a deal with Ajax, like loan me and make sure that Ajax paid back later. Mido had done something similar with his old club, I knew that. But it didn’t work. “I can’t do that”, Hasse Borg said. “You have to be on your own” and that pissed me off.

He had sold me. Wasn’t he going to help me in a situation like this?

“Why not?”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“And where is my ten percent?”

I didn’t get an answer, and got mad, but alright, I admit, I had myself to blame. I hadn’t realised that it took a month before you get a pay check, and I had car problems. It was my Mercedes convertible. It had Swedish signs. I wasn’t allowed to drive it in Holland. I had just gotten it, and the thought was to glide around in Amsterdam with it, but now I was forced to sell it and had ordered another Mercedes, a SL 55, and that didn’t really make me richer.

That’s why I now sat in Diemen, broke and hungry, and my dad told me that I was an idiot for buying such a car when I didn’t have any money, and that was probably true. But I still didn’t have any cornflakes at home, and I still hated empty fridges.

That’s when I thought of that Brazilian guy at the airport. We were some new guys that season. It was me, it was Mido, and then it was him, Maxwell; I had hanged with them both, not just because all of us were new. I felt better around the black guys and South Americans. They were more fun, I felt, and more chill and not as jealous. The Dutch guys didn’t want anything else than getting out of there and going to Italy or England and that’s why they had an eye on each other all the time – like, who’s closest? – Whilst the Africans and the Brazilians just were happy to be there. It was: Wow, do we get to play in Ajax? I felt more at home with them, and I liked the humour and the attitude. Maxwell was not like the other Brazilians though I was going to get to know. He was really no party animal, not a guy that needed to party his head off now and then, he was the opposite, he was incredibly sensitive, a family guy that called home all the time. But he was through and through a sympathetic guy, and it I should say something about him, is that he was to kind.

“Maxwell, I have a crisis”, I said on the phone. “I don’t even have cornflakes at home. Can I live with you?”

“Of course”, he said. “Come right over.”

Maxwell lived in Ouderkerk, a little society with only seven, eight thousand inhabitants, and I moved over to him and slept on a mattress on the floor for three weeks until I got my first pay check, and it wasn’t a bad time. We cooked food together and talked about the training, the other players and our old lives in Brazil and Sweden. Maxwell talked English very good. He told me about his family and his two brothers

that were very close to him, I remember that because not much later one of those brother died in a car accident. It was extremely sad. I really like Maxwell.

At his house I got some discipline in me, and it started to get better after that. I got that fantastic feeling back, and I was really good in pre-season. I spit in goals against the amateur teams we played against, and did a lot of tricks, just like I thought I would. Ajax were famous for playing fun, technical football, and the papers wrote Oh, Oh, he seem to be worth his eighty five millions, like, what a player, and indeed I felt that Co Adriaanse was hard on me. But I thought it just was the type of guy he was. I had heard so much about him.

After every game he put grades on us, he highest was ten and once when I had scored a lot of goals he said: “You scored five goals, but you also threw away to passes. You get a five.” Like alright, I get it, the demands are high. But I just continued, and sure enough, I didn’t think anything would stop me now. I remember that I met a guy who didn’t have a clue who I was. “Are you any good?” he asked.

“Not me that should answer to that!”

“Do the opponent fans boo and whistle against you?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Ok. They you’re great”, he said and that’s something I haven’t forgotten. Those who are sharp, they get boo’s and bullshit. That’s how it works.

At the of July the Amsterdam Tournament started. Amsterdam Tournament is a classic pre-season tournament In Holland at a high level, and that year would, apart from us, Milan, Valencia and Liverpool participate, and that was obviously really awesome. That was my chance to present myself for Europe, and I noticed right away, oh lord, this is something else than Allsvenskan. I Malmö I had all the time in the world on the ball. But now they were on me at once. Everything was so incredibly much faster.

In the first game we were facing Milan. Milan was in a rough patch for some time, but the club had dominated European football in the nineties and I really tried to not care about the fact that they had defenders like Maldini. I played rough and got a couple of free kicks, and cheers, and did some nice stuff. But it was tough and we lost by one-zero.

In the next game we were facing Liverpool. Liverpool had won three cup titles that year, and had maybe the strongest defence in Premier Leauge with the Fin Sami Hyppi’ and the Swiss Stéphane Henchoz. Henchoz had not only been sharp that year. He had done a thing that was talked about a great deal. In the FA- cup final he had blocked a shot on the goal line with his hand and that smartass trick that the referee didn’t see had helped Liverpool to win. Both he and Hyypiä were on me like glue. But a bit into the game I fought to get the ball down the corner flag and went in towards the penalty area and there was Henchoz. He blocked me on the short side of the pitch, and I had of course many opportunities. I was pressed but I could make a cross or play to the defence or try to go at goal.

I tried to go at goal with a one footed trick, a cool thing that Ronaldo and Romario used to do a lot and that was one of the tricks that I saw in the computer as a junior and worked on hour after hour until I could do it in the sleep and did no longer had to think about. It just came naturally. It’s called The Snake, because if it’s done correctly it’s like a snake that’s meandering along your feet. But it’s not an easy thing to do. The outside of your foot must be behind the ball and you have to push quickly to the right and then suddenly angle it to the left with the tip of your foot, and just get away, like, bam, bam, quick as hell, and with total control of the ball like it’s glued around your foot, like hockey players with a puck.

I had used that trick many times in Malmoe and in Superettan, but never against a world class defender like Henchoz that was the thing: I had already felt it against Milan, the atmosphere triggered me. It was much more fun to dribble against a guy like him, and now it just happened. It was svisch, svisch, pow, and Stéphane Henchoz flew towards the right. He didn’t get with me at all and I rushed past him, and the whole Milan team who were sitting outside the pitch stood up and screamed. The whole Amsterdam Arena was screaming.

It was a full show and afterwards when the journalists surrounded me I said those words, and I promise, I never plan what I’m going to say. It just happens and it happened a lot back then before I was careful with media. “First I went to the left”, I said, “and so did he. And then I went to the right and so did he. Then I went to the left again, and he went to buy hot dogs”, and that was quoted everywhere, and it became a famous thing. They even made a commercial thing out of it and there was talk about Milan being interested in me. I was called the new van Basten and all that, and I felt like: Wow, I’m awesome. I’m the Brazilian from Rosengård, and really, it should have been the start of a great season.

But still... a bad time was coming, and in hindsight, there had been signals right from the start, of course the things I did, I wasn’t behaving. I went home to often and started losing weight and look very thin, but it was also the coach, Co Adriaanse. He criticized be in public, not that much of a problem for now. It became much worse when he got fired. Then he said that I had something wrong in my head. Now in the beginning it was the same old usual stuff, which I played too much for myself, and I started to understand that even a thing like the trick against Henchoz would necessarily be appreciated in Ajax if it doesn’t lead to something concrete.

It’s more seen as a way to show off, and have fun with the audience instead of playing for the team. In Ajax they played with three attackers instead of two that I was used to. I was supposed to be in the middle. Not wander to the flanks and do my individual stuff. I was supposed to be a target player, who moved around up there and gathered balls and especially scored goals, and honestly, I started wondering if that technical, fun Dutch was of playing football even existed anymore. It was like they had decided to be more like the rest of Europe, but it wasn’t easy to understand the signals.

There was a lot of new stuff, and I didn’t understand the language and the culture and the coach didn’t talk to me. He didn’t talk to anyone. He was the biggest stone face. Just looking in his eyes felt wrong, and I lost my mojo. I stopped scoring goals, and then I had no use of my good pre-season, it was more the opposite. All those headlines and comparisons with van Basten were used against me, and they started to see me as a disappointment, a bad buy. I was replaced by Nikos Machlas in attack, a Greek I hanged around with a lot, and in these moments when I’m snubbed and lose form, it completely eats me up. What am I doing wrong? How can I get out of this? That’s the way I am.

I’m really not a person who walks around satisfied: Like wow, I’m Zlatan! It’s the opposite, it’s like a movie that is on all the time: Should I have done this or that? And then I watch others: What can I learn from them? What is it that I’m lacking? Every moment I think of my mistakes and my good stuff to for that matter. What can I do better? I always, always bring home with me something from the games and trainings, and obviously hard. I never get satisfied, not even when I should, but it helps me develop, it was just that: in Ajax I got stuck in those thoughts, and I had no one to talk to, not really.

I talked with the walls at my place and thought that people were idiots, and of course, I called home and moaned. But still I will never really blame anyone else. It just felt sluggish, and I didn’t feel so good. It was like I couldn’t stand the life in Holland, and I went to Beenhakker and asked: “What does the coach has to say about me? Is he satisfied, or what is it?” And Beenhakker, he’s another type than Co Adriaanse, he doesn’t just want to have obedient soldiers.

“It’s cool. It’s going well. We have patience with you”, he answered.

But I was longing for home, and I didn’t feel appreciated, not by the coach nor the journalists, and especially not by the fans. Those Ajax supporters can’t be messed with. They’re used to winning, it’s like: What the hell, you only won by three-zero?

When we got a draw against Roda they threw stones and bottles at us, and I had to stay in the arena and seek shelter. It was a lot of shit all the time and instead of all that “Zlatan, Zlatan” that I’ve also heard in the beginning in Ajax, I now got boo’s, and not by the opponent fans. That would have been normal, but now it was our own fans, and that was rough. It was: What the hell is this?

But at the same time, you have to accept the situation in this sport, and somewhere I understood them. I was the biggest investment of the club. I wasn’t really supposed to be a substitute. I should be the new van Basten and score goal after goal, and I tried my best. I tried too much, to be honest.

A football season is long, and you can’t really show everything in one game. But that was what I was trying to do. As soon as I came in I wanted to show it all at the same time, and that’s why I got stuck, I believe. I wanted too much, and therefore it wasn’t enough, and I guess that I hadn’t learned to handle the pressure yet, after all. Those eighty five millions were starting to feel like a damn backpack, and I sat often alone in my house in Diemen.

I had no idea what the journalists thought of me back then, many probably imagined that me and Mido were out partying all night. But in reality I sat at home playing video games, day and night, and if we were free on a Monday, I flew home on Sunday night and got back with the six o’clock flight on Tuesday morning and went straight to practice. There was no night clubs, nothing like that, but I wasn’t really being a professional. Honestly, I was very unprofessional, and I didn’t sleep well or eat well and did a lot of crazy stuff in Malmoe. I played with airbomb’s and such, firework bombs that we threw into gardens, it was a lot of stuff to get adrenalin rushes’. There was a lot of crazy car rides because that’s how I work. If nothing is happening in football, I have to get my kicks in some other way. I need action, I need speed, and I wasn’t behaving.

I continued losing weight, and as a target in Ajax I was supposed to fight and be tough. But I was down at seventy five kilo, or less even. I was really thin, and I was probably worked out. I didn’t have any vacation. I have had two pre-season in six months, and the diet, what do you think? I ate garbage. I still couldn’t do anything else than toast bread and boil macaronis, and all that positive flow from the papers had disappeared. It was no “Success for Zlatan again”. It was “Zlatan was booed”, “He’s out of balance”. He’s this and that, and then they were talking about my elbows. There was so much fucking talk about them.

It started in a game against Groningen where I elbowed a defender in the neck. The referee didn’t see anything, but the defender fell on the floor and was carried out of the pitch on a stretcher, and they said that he had a concussion. When he came in after the break he was still kind of groggy, but the worst thing is, the FA studied the incident and decided to suspend me for five games.

That wasn’t really what I needed, it was shit, and no one can say that I started out well after the suspension. I elbowed a new guy in the neck, and of course, he was carried out on a stretcher as well. It was like I had started some new stupid thing, and even though I didn’t get a suspension that time I didn’t get to play much after that, and it was rough, and the fans didn’t become much happier, you could really say that, and I called Hasse Borg. It was an idiotic thing to do, but that’s what you do in hopeless situations.

“Damn, Hasse, can’t you buy me back?”

“Buy you back? Are you serious?”

“Take me away from here. I can’t handle it.”

“Come on, Zlatan, there’s no money for that, you must understand that. You have to have patience.”

But I was tired of having patience, I wanted to play more, and I was so homesick, it was crazy. I still felt completely lost, and once again I started to call Mia, not that I knew if it was her or anyone else I missed. I was lonely and wanted my old life back. But what did I get? I got a new set back.

It started with me finding out that I was making the least money in the team. I had that feeling for a while, and eventually I knew. I was the most expensive guy, but my salary was the lowest. I was bought to be the new van Basten. But I didn’t make any money, and I mean: What was the reason of that? It was so hard to figure it out.

You remember Hasse Borg’s words: “Agents are thieves” and that, and like a damn lightning I

understood: he had fooled me. He acted like he was on my side, but in reality he only worked for Malmö

AFand the more I thought of it, the angrier I became. Right from the start Hasse Borg had made sure that no one came between us, no one that could represent my interests. That’s why I had to stand there in Hotel S:t Jörgen like fool in my training overall and let the suits with their educations in economy fool me,

and it felt like a punch in the stomach. Get it right now! Money has never been the big thing for me, but to be let down and used, to be seen as the most stupid falafel boy that you can fool and make money off, that made me mad, and I went for it. I called Hasse Borg.

“What the fuck is this? I have the worst contract in the whole club.”

“What are you talking about?”

He was playing stupid.

“And where’s my ten percent?”

“We’ve put them in insurance’s in England.”

In an insurance? What the fuck was that? It didn’t tell me anything, and I explained alright, insurance, a plastic bag with money, in a bucket in the desert.

“I want my money now.”

“I can’t”, he said.

The money was bound, they had planned it on some kind of way I didn’t understand, and I decided to go to the bottom of it. I got me an agent, because I had understood so much: agents aren’t thieves. Without an agent you don’t stand a chance. Without help you just stand there and get made by the suits again, and via a friend I got hold of a guy called Anders Carlsson who worked at IMG in Stockholm.

He was alright; there was no speed in him though. He was one of those guys who never spat his gum to the street or crosses the line but still want to act kind of tough like that, without it being natural. But, Anders really helped me a lot during the first time. He god me those insurance’s, but then came the next chock. It was no longer ten percent of the money. It said eight percent and I asked:

“What is this?”

They had paid something they called a pretax on the salary, I was told, and I thought: What is this shit?

Pretax on salary! I’ve never heard of it, and I said right away: This can’t be right. It’s a new trick, and would you believe it? Anders Carlsson looked into it, and got me my two percent. Suddenly there was no pretax on salary anymore, and then it all fell down, I was done with Hasse Borg. It became a lesson I will never forget. It honestly branded me, and don’t think for a second that I don’t have any clue about my money and terms today.

When Mino called a while ago he asked:

“What did you get for your book from Bonniers?” (ed note: the company that is releasing the book.) “I don’t really know.”

“Bullshit! You know exactly how much”, and of course, he was right.

I have total control. I refuse to be used and fooled again, and I always try to stay one step ahead in negotiations. What are they thinking? What do they want, and what’s their secret tactic? And then I remember. Stuff stays in my head, and sure, Helena usually says that I shouldn’t dwell so much: Like, “I’m tired of hating Hasse Borg.”

But no, I don’t forgive him, not a chance. You don’t do that to a guy from the suburbs who don’t know anything about stuff like this. You don’t pretend to be an extra dad when you’re trying to find every possible way to fool him. I had been the guy in the junior team who no one believed in, I was the one who was expected to be the last one to be brought up to the senior team. But then... when I was sold for big money, the attitude was something else. Then they wanted to milk me for every dime. One moment I hardly existed, and in the next I was going to be used. I don’t forget that, and I often thing: Would Hasse Borg have done the same thing if I was a nice guy with dad who was a lawyer?

I don’t think so, and already then in Ajax I talked about it. I said something like: He should watch himself. But I guess that he didn’t really get it, and later on in his book he wrote that he was my mentor, he was the man that had taken care of me. It was just that: I believe he got it later on. Because we met in a elevator a couple of years ago. In Hungary. I was there with the national team, and stepped into the elevator, and on the fourth floor we stopped and from out of nowhere he stepped in. He was in town for some kiss ass trip, and was tying his tie and they he saw me. Hasse is a lot of: “Well well, hello, hello, how’s it going?”, that style, and he said something and put his hand out.

He didn’t get a movement back, nothing, just ice-cold and black eyes and of course, he got all nervous. He just stood there, psyched, and I didn’t say a word. I just watched him, and down in the lobby I just went out and left him there behind me. That’s our only meeting since then, so no, I don’t forget. Hasse Borg is a person I can split into two parts, and then in Ajax it hurt me. I felt fooled and violated, I had the worst pay check, and our own fans were booing me. It was this and that. It was the elbows. It was shit, there were lists with my mistakes, the cop thing in Industrigatan for the hundred times, and so I was out of balance, it was said. They missed the old Zlatan. It was a lot of talk day after day, and the thoughts were grinding in me.

I looked for solutions every hour, every minute, because no, I wouldn’t give up, not a chance. I’m not raising having it good, many people forget that. I’m not talent who has danced my way into Europe. I’m fought against the tide. Parents and coaches have been against me from the very beginning, and a lot of the stuff that I’ve learned, I’ve learned on the contrary of what others have said. That Zlatan only dribbles, they’ve moaned. He’s this and that, he’s wrong. But I’ve continued, I’ve listened, I haven’t listened, and now in Ajax I really tried to understand the culture and learn how they thought and played.

I wondered what I could do better. I worked hard and tried to learn from others. But at the same time, I didn’t abandon my style. No one would take away the main soul of my game, not that I was defiant or fussy, I just kept on fighting, and when I fight on the pitch, I can look aggressive. That’s a part of my temperament. I demand as much as others that I demand from myself. But apparently I bugged Co Adriaanse. I was a difficult person, he said later on, full of himself: I just did my thing, bla bla bla and of course, he can say whatever he want; I’m not going for revenge. I accept the situation. The coach is the boss. I can only say that I really tried to get a spot.

But it wouldn’t give in. Nothing happened, except that we heard Co Adriaanse was going to get fired, and that was good news, after all. We had just got beaten by Henke’s Celtic in the qualifier for Champions League and against FC Copenhagen in the UEFA-cup, but I don’t think it was the results that got him fired. We were doing well in the league. He went because he couldn’t communicate with the players. No one had any contact with him. We had been living in a vacuum, and it’s true, I like tough guys, and Co Adriaanse was really tough. But he went over the line, there was no point in his dictator type of way, no sense of humour, no nothing, and we were all curious: Who’s coming next?

There was some talk about Rijkaard, and that sounded good, not because a great player automatically becomes a great coach, but still, with van Basten and Gullit, Rijkaard had been legendary in Milan. But Koeman became the coach, and I knew that guy as well, he had been a fantastic free kick taker in Barcelona. He had Ruud Krol with him, another great player, and I noticed right away, they understood me much better, and I started hoping that everything would became better.

But it got worse. I was benched five games in a row and on one of the trainings Koeman sent me home. “You’re not there”, he yelled. “You’re not giving it all. You have to go home.” Sure, I got out of there; I had my minds somewhere else. It wasn’t a big thing, but sure, there were big headlines. Even Lars Lagerbäck (ed note: Swedish national coach at the time) talked in the papers about how worried he was for me, the talks were that I was going to lose my NT spot, and that wasn’t fun, not at all.

There was going to be a WC in Japan that summer, and that was something I had been living for a long time. And I also got worried that my shirt, number nine in Ajax, would be taken away from me, not that I really cared though. I don’t give a shit what’s written on the back. But it would be a sign that they didn’t have any trust in me. In Ajax they talked a lot about numbers all the time. Number ten must do this. Number eleven that, and nothing was as great as the number nine, van Basten’s old one. It was an honour to carry it, and if you didn’t cut it they would take it away from you, that’s how it worked, and now it was said that I didn’t provide anything, and sadly, they had a point I guess.

I had only scored five goals in the league. It became a total of six and mostly I sat on the bench and got more boo’s from our own supporters. When I was warming up to come in they screamed: “Nikos, Nikos, Machlas, Machlas”. It didn’t matter how bad he was, they didn’t want me in. They wanted him, and I thought: Shit, I haven’t even started playing, but they’re already against me. If I had a bad pass they raged up there, boos or the same old shit again: “Nikos, Nikos, Machlas, Machlas.” It wasn’t enough that I

wasn’t playing good. I had to put up with that thing as well, and sure, it looked like we were winning the league.

But I really couldn’t be happy about it. I hadn’t been a part of it for real, and it couldn’t be hidden anymore. We were too many players on my position in the team. One of us had to go and it looked like it was going to be me, I had that feeling, and it was often said that I was target player number three, after Machlas and Mido. Even Leo Beenhakker, my friend, went out in Dutch media:

“Zlatan is often the player who starts our attacks. But he can’t finish in front of the goal”, and he added: “If we’re going to sell him, we’ll of course help him to get to a good club.”

It was in the air, and more and more of those statements came. Koeman himself said: “Zlatan is by quality our best attacker, but to make it as number nine in Ajax you have to have other characteristics as well. I doubt that he can get them”, and really the war headlines came: “Answer tonight”, it said. “Zlatan is on the market!” and it felt, trust me; it was like I was going to be busted as the overhyped diva, after all.

I hadn’t lived up to the expectations. It was my first real set back. But I refused to give up. I would show them. That thought went around in my head, day and night, and honestly, I had to, regardless if I was getting sold or not. I had to show that I was good no matter what. It’s was just that: how would I do that when I wasn’t getting any playing time? It was a fox trap. It was hopeless and I sat and jumped on the bench: Are they stupid or what? It was like the junior team in MFF.

That spring we qualified to the final of the Dutch cup. We were facing Utrecht at De Kuip in Rotterdam, the same arena where the EM-final had been held two years earlier, and there was a massive pressure from the stands. It was the twelfth May 2002. There was fires and stuff and roars in the stands. For Utrecht, Ajax is the big enemy. No team is more important to beat, and the fans where crazy filled with hatred and wanted revenge after our league victory. You could really feel it, and for us it was an opportunity to grab the double and show that we were back after some hard years. But of course, I was hardly going to get any playing time now either.

I was on the bench the whole first half and most of the second and watched Utrecht score two-one with a penalty and trust me, it felt. We lost our wings whilst the Utrecht fans got wild and crazy and not far away from me Koeman was unhappy in his suit and red tie. He looked like he had given up. Let me play then, I thought, and in the seventy eight minute I got in. Something had to happen and of course, I was eager. I was pumped and wanted to do everything at once like usual that year, and we were on them all the time, but the minutes went on and it looked like we were going to lose. We couldn’t put it in and I remember that I had a shot that really thought would go in, but it hit the bar.

We were on stoppage time and it looked hopeless. There wasn’t going to be any Cup-victory and the Utrecht fans were cheering in the stands. You could see their red banners in the whole arena, and you heard their songs and roars and you could see their fires, and there was thirty seconds left. Then a low cross came into the penalty area and passed several Utrecht defenders and found Wamberto, one of the Brazilians in our team, and he was probably offside, but the linesman didn’t see it, and Wamberto put his foot on it and score, it was insane. We were saved in the dying moments of the stoppage time, and the Utrecht fans couldn’t believe it, they were a mess. But it wasn’t over yet.

It went to extra time, and many extra time’s in the cups back then were decided by a golden goal or sudden death like they call it in hockey, and that was what was going to happen now. The team that scored a goal would win the game at once, and just five minutes into the extra time another cross came in, this time from the left, and I jumped up and headed it and short afterwards I got the ball again. I took it down on my chest, I was really pressured, but I could fire a shot with my left, not a good shot, not at all. The ball bounced on the grass. But oh my God, it was well put and it went in and I took my shirt of and rushed out to the left, all crazy with happiness and skinny as hell. You could see my ribs. It had been a rough year. There had been one hell of a pressure and my game wasn’t good during long periods of time. But now I was back. I had made it. I had showed them all, and the whole arena was crazy. It really vibrated of happiness and disappointment, and I especially remember Koeman, he ran towards me and shouted in my ear:

“Thank you very much! Thank you very much”

It was such a joy, it can’t be explained, I just ran around there with the team and just felt how every tension let go.