was a typical fucking jugge [ed note: swedish street lingo for an immigrant Yugoslav], she thought, with a gold watch and fancy car and I played music too loud, I definitely wasn't someone for her. But I didn't know anything about that.

I thought I was cool as hell, and I was sitting there in my Mercedes SL outside the Forex exchange by the central station in Malmö, while my kid brother, Keki, was inside exchanging cash. The season was over in Holland, and it might have been before or after the World Cup in Japan, I don't know, it doesn't matter, there I was and this chick ran out of a cab furious as hell. She was angry about something.

I thought: who the fuck is that?

I had never seen her before, and I had Malmö more or less under control. I had been there as soon as I had the chance and I thought I knew everything about the place. But that girl… where had she been? She wasn't only good looking. She had an awesome attitude, like "don't mess with me", and she was older,

and that was exciting. So I asked around: Who is she? What girl is that? From a friend I found out her name was Helena. Ok, Helena, I thought. Helena. I couldn't get her out of my mind.

But nothing more came out of that. There was so much happening around me, and I was restless and moved on, nothing really stuck, but one day I went to Stockholm again with the national team, and that city, I mean, where do all the fancy babes come from? It's insane, they are everywhere, and me and some friends went to Café Opera, and of course, there was commotion, and as always I was scanning the scene with that eye I've grown up with: are there any problems coming? Is someone picking a fight? There's always something.

But those days were better. This was before everyone started taking pics with their cell phones, and most don't even ask. They just fire a shot in your face, and sometimes I get furious. But this time, I was just looking around I suddenly I spotted her, like wow!, that's the girl from Forex and I went up to her and started talking: Hey, hey, are you also from Malmö, and she said her things, I work there and there, and I couldn't understand anything. Such career things I just couldn't grasp back then, and I was probably pretty arrogant. I had that style when was out back then.

I didn't want anyone to get too close. But I regretted it afterwards, I should have been more polite, and I was happy when I saw her in Malmö again. I started seeing her everywhere. She had a black Mercedes SLK, and it was often parked at Lilla Torg, and I often cruised past that place. By this time I didn't have the Mercedes SL anymore, but a red Ferrari 360.

The whole city knew I had one. It was like "Look, there's Zlatan", and for sure, if I wanted to hide, the car wasn't the best idea. But you should know that the guys who sold me the Mercedes said promised: You'll be the only one in Sweden with it! It was sales talk bullshit. I saw another one just like it that summer and immediately thought: Fuck them. I don't want that car anymore, so I called someone who sold Ferraris and asked: Do you have one available? Sure, they said, so I went there and picked one up, and left the SL as part of the payment. It was stupid, I made a loss and my finances weren't great at that time. But I didn't care.

I was proud of my cars, it was a thing of principle, and that's why I cruised around in my Ferrari feeling cool, and sometimes I'd see her in her black Mercedes, the girl Helena, and I was thinking, like: I have to do something about this, I can't just sit here and watch, so from a friend I got her mobile number, and I thought about it for a while. Should I call her?

I sent a text message, like "Hey, what's up? I think you've seen me a few times", and ended with the signature: "The guy with the red one", the guy with the red Ferrari, and wow, I got a reply, "The girl with the black one", she wrote, and I was thinking this could be the start of something, what did I know?

I called her and we met nothing special at first, we had lunch a few times, and I came with her to her mansion outside of town, and checked out all her interior design things, the wallpapers, the fireplaces and all those things, and honestly, all those things impressed me. It was something completely new. I had never met a single girl who lived like that, and I guess I really didn't understand what she was doing. She was working with marketing in some way at Swedish Match, but I understood she had a great status and reputation in her line of work, and I liked it.

She was nothing like the younger girls I'd met. Nothing was hysterical, not at all, she was tough. She liked cars. She had left home when she was seventeen and worked her way up, and it wasn't like I was some kind of superstar to her, or like she said: "You're not exactly Elvis who's landed." I was just a crazy kid to her, who dressed ugly and was totally immature, and sometimes it'd annoy her.

Evil super bitch deluxe, I would answer, or Evilsuperbitchdeluxe in one word, in one breath, because she was running around in the baddest stiletto heels wearing tight jeans and furs that whole thing. She was like Tony Montana in "Scarface", but a girl, and I was walking around in my tracksuits again. The whole deal was so wrong it felt good in a way, and we had a blast together. "Zlatan, you're so fucked up. You're hilarious", she said, and I was hoping she really meant it. I felt good around her.

But still, she came from a nice ordinary swedish family in Lindesberg, the kind of family where you say "Dear, can you please pass me the milk", when we as I said, more or less threatened to kill each other at the dinner table, and many times I didn't even understand what she was saying, and I didn't know anything about her world, and she knew nothing about mine. I was eleven years younger and lived in Holland and was a maniac with criminal friends. It wasn't like a perfect match.

When me and some friends went down to Båstad that summer we tried getting into a party she had arranged with all sorts of celebrities and big shots during the "tennis week" the door guys wouldn't let us in. At least they didn't want to let my friends in, and it became sort of a circus. There was stuff happening all the time.

I played a national team game in Riga for example and landed in Stockholm late at night and I took a cab to Scandic Park Hotel with Olof Mellberg and Lars Lagerbäck. We hadn't played a great game. We only reached 0-0 against Latvia in the World Cup qualifier and I always have problems sleeping after games, especially when I haven't played well. My mistakes are like buzzing inside of me, so me and some friends decided to go downtown and check out Spy Bar at Stureplan. It was late and I went up some stairs.

But I hadn't been there for long before a girl came up to me and she was being very offensive, and sure, I had my friends nearby. If you see me on the town you can be certain I always have some friends close. Not just because the chaos that usually surrounds me. I have that character thing. I often end up with the bad guys. We're like drawn to each other, and that doesn't bother me at all. They're as nice as anyone else. But of course, things can heat up, and this girl, she came too close and said something stupid, she started provoking, and all of a sudden her brother was there too, touching and pulling me, he shouldn't have.

You don't mess with my friends. One of them took the brother and another one the girl, and I felt it immediately, no, I don't want to be part of this. I wanted to get out, but it was the first time I was at Spy Bar, it was late and crowded, and I couldn't find my way.

I ended up in the bathroom instead, and over where I had been there was complete chaos and I became stressed. I had played a national team game. This is gonna result in headlines, I thought, this will be a scandal, and then one of the doormen appeared and wasn't as nice anymore.

"The owner wants you to leave the place."

"Tell that pig I want nothing else", I said, and he and some other guys walked me out, and I left.

It was half past three in the morning apparently, I know that, because a security camera took pictures of me, and what do you think happened? Did they handle those pictures with secrecy and all that? Not really. It ended up in Aftonbladet and all the front pages, and you wouldn't believe it, it was like I had killed seven people. The papers were screaming about the thing, and they said I was charged with harassment. Harassment? Can you believe it? Fucked up, and as always, someone who had touched me became a media celeb.

I went back to Amsterdam. We were playing against Lyon in the Champions League, and I refused talking to the press. Mido was out there speaking for me instead. We, the problem kids had to help each other. But seriously, that was enough of it, and it didn't surprise me at all when we found out that Aftonbladet were the ones who had made sure that girl pressed charges, and I said publicly: I'm going to get that paper. I will sue them. But what do you think? I didn't get shit, only an apology, and I became more on guard after that. I was changing.

There had been too many bad things in the media, and sure, I had never only wanted crap like: Zlatan is training, Zlatan is good, Zlatan is behaving. Not at all. But now the line was crossed, and I wanted some attention for my football again. It had been a while since there was something positive about that.

Also the World Cup had been a disappointment. I had so high expectations, and for a while it didn't seem like I would play there at all. But Lagerbäck and Söderberg finally picked me and I liked them both, especially Söderberg of course, the teddy bear of the team. During one practice I lifted him up in the air

out of pure joy. I broke two of his ribs. He could barely walk, but he was a cool dude. I shared room with Andreas Isaksson. Andreas was the third goalie back then, a good guy, I guess. But seriously, his habits! He went to sleep at nine in the evening, and there I was and of course my mobile rang, it was like "Yeah, great, finally someone to talk to!" But Andreas just snorted and I hung up. I didn't want to bother him. I'm a nice guy, really. But the next night the phone rang again around the same time and he was sleeping again, or pretended to.

"But what the fuck, Zlatan", he hissed, and then I bit back, I mean what the fuck is that? Sleeping at nine o'clock?

"If you open your mouth again I will throw your bed out the window." That was apparently a good line, not because we lived on the twentieth floor, but because it had effect.

The next day I got my own room, so nice, but a part from that I didn't have any success personally. We were in the "group of death", as it was called, with England, Argentina and Nigeria, and it was such an atmosphere, great stadiums, perfect pitches, and I wanted to get in there and play more than ever before. But they thought I was too inexperienced. So they benched me. Still I was voted man of the match in a phone poll. Crazy! I was voted best in the game although I didn't even play. It was that old Zlatan fever again, and I only played five minutes against Argentina and short bit in the round of 16 against Senegal when I actually had some good chances. No, I thought Lars and Tommy used the same lineup too much and didn't give us, the new players, enough opportunities. But that was the way it was and I left and went back to Amsterdam.

I had a strategy. I wouldn't care about what others said and only do my thing. That was my goal, but it didn't help, not at first. It started like it had ended - on the bench. The fight about the spots in attack was hard, and I had some critics, one of them was Johan Cruyff, who always has been talking shit about me, and already at that time had opinions on my technique.

But other things happened too; Mido, my friend, publicly said that he wanted to be sold, not very smart, honestly he wasn't much of a diplomat, he was like me, or even worse. Later, when he had been on the bench against Eindhoven, he came into the dressing room and called everyone pussies. He was going on and about and there weren't any pretty words and I answered that if anyone was a pussy, he was, so he took a pair of scissors from a table and threw them at me, totally crazy to say the truth. The scissors flew by my head, straight into the tile wall which cracked, and of course, I stood up and gave him a slap, a punch. But after ten minutes we walked out, arm in arm, and a long time later I found out that our team manager had saved those scissors as a souvenir, like something he could show the kids, like Zlatan was almost hit by this in his face.

Anyway, it was a bit up and down with Mido, and now he had fucked up again. Koeman fined him and put him in the freezer, and there was this other guy, his name was Rafael van der Vaart, a Dutch, quite an arrogant guy, like many of the white guys on the team, even if he wasn't upper- class or anything. He had grown up in a trailer and lived a gypsy life, as he called it, and started playing football in the street with beer bottles as goal posts and he claimed that had sharpened his technique. He had joined the Ajax youth academy when he was only ten, and trained hard, and sure, he had become good. The year before he had been named European talent of the year or something like that. But he tried being a tough guy and he wanted to be seen and wanted to be a leader, and already in the beginning there was like a competition between us two.

Now he had injured his knee, and with both him and Mido away I would start against Lyon. It was my Champions League debut - I had only played in the qualifiers before - and of course that was cool. Champions League had been a dream for me and the atmosphere at the stadium was fucking amazing. I had brought down a bunch of friends and gotten them great tickets, and I remember that I got a pass early in the game from Jari Litmanen, the Finnish guy. I liked him.

Litmanen had played for Barcelona and Liverpool and just recently come to us, and he immediately had an inspiring effect on me. A lot of guys in Ajax were just playing for themselves. All they wanted was to be sold to a bigger club, and if often felt like they were more competing with each other than the other teams. But Litmanen really was a team player. He stood for the real deal, I thought, and when he gave me the

ball I ran down the sideline and was met by two defenders, one in front of me and one to the right. I had been in situations like that many times, and analyzed them back and forth.

It was kind of the same situation as against Henchoz against Liverpool, but there were two guys now, and I did a a two foot dribble to the left, and both defenders were all over me. It looked like a dead end, but then I saw an opening between them, like a narrow corridor, and even before I had time to think about it I was through and came in front of the goal and saw another opening and made a shot, a low strike that hit the post and went in, and I went crazy.

It wasn't just a goal, it was beautiful too, and I ran like crazy towards my friends on the side and cheered with them, and the whole team was after me, totally crazy, and not long after that I scored another goal. It was insane, really. Two goals in my Champions League debut, and rumors began about Roma wanting me, Tottenham too actually.

I was on a go, and normally when the football is going great, there isn't a single problem in the world. But I had a bad time privately. I hadn't adapted to life down there. I was sort of like in a vacuum. I was at home too much and did stupid things, and I stayed in contact with Helena, mostly through text messages, without really knowing what I was doing. Was it just a crazy thing, or was it something else?

We played a Euro qualifier at Råsunda against Hungary in October. It felt great to be back. I hadn't forgotten the chanting from the year before, but we didn't begin well, and some of the Stockholm newspapers wrote that I was just an overrated guy who just elbowed my way ahead. It was an important game. If we lost the dream of the Euros could be gone, and both me and the rest of the national team had a lot to prove. But Hungary scored already after four minutes, and it didn't seem to matter how many chances we created. We just couldn't score, and it felt like a lost game and in the seventy-fourth minute Mattias Jonson made a high pass and I went up to head it. The goalie threw himself over me and tried to knock the ball away, but I don't know if he hit the ball. He knocked me out anyway, and everything went black. I fell to the ground.

I was gone for five or ten seconds and when I woke up the players were standing in a circle around me and I didn't understand anything: What's happening? What's going on? There was a roar from the audience and the guys looked both happy and concerned.

"It was a goal", Kim Källström said.

"Really? Who scored?"

"You did it, with your head."

I felt ill and dizzy and they brought in a stretcher which I laid down on. The team doctor was there and they carried me out, and then I heard the chanting again: "Zlatan, Zlatan." The entire stadium was on their feet, screaming, and I waved at them. It lifted me, and got the whole team going. OK, we only got 1-1 and we should have won. Kim Källström had a clear penalty during the final minutes but the ref chose not to see it. But I remember that thing, feeling so bad and so good at the same time, and soon afterwards I got sick in another way, the worst kind of fever which hit 250,000 people in Sweden and at that time another unexpected thing happened which changed a lot.

It was the day before Christmas Eve. I was at mom's place. The beginning of the season hadn't been great, but I was quite pleased, despite everything. I had scored five goals in the Champions League, actually more than in the dutch league, and I remember Koeman saying to me: "Hey you, Zlatan, there is a league as well", but I was working like that somehow. A better opponent triggered me and anyway, now I was at home in Rosengård.

We were off until the beginning of January when we were going on training camp and were playing a game in Cairo, and I really needed to rest. But it was crowded at mom's, and people were yelling and making noise and fought all the time. There was no peaceful place anywhere. It was me, mom, Keki and Sanela, and we used to spend Christmas like everyone else, a simple Christmas dinner at four o'clock and then opening gifts, and definitely, it could have been really nice. But I couldn't take that now. I had headaches and my body hurt. I needed to get away and get some peace, or at least talk with someone outside the family. It was just that: who could I call?

Everyone has their thing during Christmas. It's a sacred time. But maybe Helena? I tried. Not that I was hoping for much. She was working all the time and probably she was with her parents in Lindesberg. But no, she picked up, she was at her house. She said she didn't like Christmas.

"I feel bad", I said.

"You poor thing"

"I can't handle the circus at home!"

"Come over here then", she replied. "I'll take care of you", and honestly, that was a bit surprising.

We had mostly met for coffee and sent a lot of text messages before, I still hadn't spent the night at her place, but of course, that sounded perfect, so I left: "Sorry mom", kind of, "I have to leave."

"So now you're not even spending Christmas with us either?"

"Sorry", and out there on the countryside Helena put me to bed, and it was calm and quiet outside, exactly what I needed. It was really nice, and it didn't feel strange at all spending Christmas with her instead of the family. It was natural and exciting at the same time. But I didn't get well.

I was quite wasted, and next day was Christmas Eve, and I had promised my dad to come by. Dad doesn't celebrate Christmas. He's alone, sitting doing his own things. Him and me had an amazing relationship since that day on field one in Malmö. The whole deal from childhood with him not caring was gone, and he had come down and watched games several times, and partly as a homage to him I had switched from Zlatan to Ibrahimovic on my shirt. But then he was totally drunk again and I couldn't handle it, not for one second, so I went straight back to Helena. "Are you back already?"

"I'm back."

That was more or less all I had the energy to say. Then I got really sick, like a 41 degree fever. I promise. I have never been in such a shitty condition. It was a super flu. I was wasted for three days and Helena had to shower me and change the sheets which were all sweaty, and I was dizzy and mumbling and whining, and there was something about that. I don't know. But until that moment I had been the cocky "jugge" to her. The guy acting mafia with fancy cars, and was kind of fun, at least I hoped so, but who not really was the guy for her.

Now I was all broken down, like a wreck, and she liked that somehow, she says. I became human. My fancy front cracked, and when I became a bit better she went and rented a bunch of movies, and it was the first time I watched Swedish crime films like "Beck", and it was sort of like an awakening for me. It was like wow, can Sweden make stuff like this! I was totally hooked and we sat there together and watched film after film and had a very nice time, not that we became a couple at once, not at all.

She came and left during those days. She went to work and came back and took care of me, and absolutely, sometimes we wouldn't understand eachother, and we still didn't know what we wanted and we were still so totally different and wrong, and whatever else there was. But that's when it began, I think so, it felt great hanging with her, and when I got back to Holland I really missed her. Can't you come down here? I said, and she did. She visited me in Diemen. It was nice. But no one can say she was impressed by my small house. By then I had started liking it out there and I made sure the fridge was full.

But she claims she had to scrub my floors, and that there was a total mess everywhere and that I only had three plates at home and they were all mismatched, and the walls were insane, purple, yellow and peach-coloured in a weird mix and that the green carpeting didn't go with anything and that everything was a disaster. And of course, I dressed like a loser, and only was in bed playing video games, and there were cords and shit everywhere, and no order anywhere. Evil super bitch, I said.

Evil super bitch deluxe, in one breath.

I missed her when she left, and I started calling and texting more often, and I think I calmed down a bit. Jesus, this was a girl with class. She taught me things, like what do knives and forks for fish look like, and how you drink wine! By that time I thought you'd drink expensive wines like milk. But no, no, no, apparently you'd sit there sipping it slowly. I started getting it. But sure, just because of that I hadn't become easy. I continued going back to Malmö all the time, and not just to make out.

One day me and some friends came to Helena's house and span around on her gravel paths, and she went crazy and screamed that they had been raked and made nice and that everything had been ruined now, and of course, I got a bad conscience. I have to do something about this, I thought. I sent my little brother. He came there and got a rake put in his hands, but seriously, we don't really know rakes and stuff like that in my family. My brother didn't turn out a success really, and I got to hear that I was completely stupid again, but kinda fun.

Another time I had given her a Sony Vaio, a laptop. But then we had a fight, so I didn't think she should have that computer anymore. So I gave Keki, my kid brother, a new mission. Get it back, I said, and Keki usually does what I say, at least sometimes, so he went there, but what do you think happened? You can eat shit, Helena said. She wouldn't return anything, and soon afterwards we became friends again. But it was a mess. Those air bombs for example. We bought them from a guy who made them at home, and those were really powerful. At that time we had a friend who had a fast food place in Malmö, a good guy, But we agreed that we should blow some shit up at his place, just for fun, and for that we needed a car which couldn't be linked to us, and since Helena had a lot of contacts, I asked her:

"Can you get me a SUV?"

Of course, she got me a Lexus, I guess she thought we would do something nice after all. But we went to his place and threw a bomb in the mailbox, and that box, it flew away. There was a loud bang and it went in seven million pieces, and the same night, since we were on the go, we called Keki. "Do you wanna have some fun?"

He probably didn't want to, but we went to his girlfriend's house, where they were sleeping, and threw two bombs in her garden. There was an insane bang there as well, and lots of smoke and shit, and parts of the lawn flew in the air, and of course, the girl came out: "What the fuck was that?" and Keki, he acted stupid: "Oh my god, what was that? That's so strange! Scary." But of course he knew, and really, you get this, it was kid's fooling around, stuff I always needed to do, sometimes still today actually, but of course, the time in Ajax was my most crazy period. It was before Mino Raiola and Fabio Capello got some sense in me.

I remember buying furniture for my brother at Ikea. He could pick anything he wanted. Already back then I had started helping my family quite a lot. I bought a house for mom in Svågertorp and eventually a car for my dad, despite him being so proud and not wanting to receive any gifts. But this time at Ikea I had a friend with me, and we had all the stuff in those shopping carts they have. One of the carts rolled away a bit past the checkout, and my friend of course got it immediately, he was smart, and I insisted: "Keep walking, go, go!"

So we got some of that stuff for free, and of course we liked that. But please don't think it was about money. It was the rush, the kick. It was the adrenaline. It was like the childhood in the department stores. But sure, definitely, sometimes it was too much. Like that thing with the Lexus. It was spotted in some shady place and it was reported everywhere and it became embarrassing for Helena, like: "Hey you, that car you rented was spotted at a bomb scene!" She got in a bad light because of me, sorry Helena, and then there was the Porsche Cayenne.

She had gotten it for us the same way. But we crashed it a bit in a ditch on the way home from Båstad, and she was furious about it, and you have to understand that, and on top of everything she had a break-in. Helena had worked hard, not only with marketing, but also extra at restaurants to be able to buy the house on the countryside, and quite a lot of nice stuff, furniture, a motorcycle and hi-fi equipment. She had worked hard to make that money, so it must have hurt when someone broke in and stole her Bang and Olufsen things and a lot of other stuff. I understand that.

But Helena thought I knew who had done it. She still does. But I have no clue. I promise. There's a lot of talking in my old hood. We find out about all shit that happens. One night I was parked outside my mom's place and some guy stole the wheels on my Mercedes SL. I found out at five in the morning and rumors had already spread and the police were there photographing and journalists, so I stayed indoors. But I started checking, and it didn't take long to find out who had stolen them, and after a week I had the wheels back. But I never found out who broke into Helena's place, and honestly, sometimes I can't

understand how she could put up with me. She had gotten involved with a maniac. But she put up with me, that was strong, and I think she got to see some results too.

Before, I had mostly been on my own and didn't really have anyone to talk to, not about the stuff in everyday life or things that bothered me. But now I had gotten some routines and something to miss and Helena came down more and more often, and we sort of became a little family, especially after she got that fat mops Hoffa who we fed pizza and mozzarella in Italy.

But before that many things would happen. It was now my career took off, and I got revenge once again.