aybe I was getting older and more mature, or maybe not. I've talked about kicks. I need kicks. I've needed them ever since I was little, and sometimes I totally lose it. It still happens. I have a friend who's been around for a long time and who owned a pizza joint in Malmö. He weighs like a hundred twenty kilos, and I drove from Båstad to Malmö with him in my Porsche, and honestly, many people don't like driving with me. Not that I'm a bad driver, not at all. I rule. But I have a lot of adrenaline, and this time we sped up to 300 km/hr. It felt slow so I pushed it further. Three hundred and one, three hundred and two, and after a while the road became more narrow. But I continued, and when the meter said three twenty five my friend lost it:

"Zlatan, slow the fuck down, I have a family!"

"And what about me, you fat bastard, what do I have", I replied.

Then I slowed down, probably reluctantly, and we had a sigh of relief and smiled at eachother. You have to take care of yourself, after all. But it wasn't easy getting sensible. Those things gave me kicks, and even though I've never done any drugs, there's probably an addict inside me. I get lost in things. Now it's hunting. But back then it was Xbox and a new game came in November that year.

It was called "Gears of War", and I went insane. I'd lock myself up. I built a gaming room and sat there hour after hour and it could be three, four in the morning, and I really had to take care of myself and not turn up at practice like a wreck. But I continued. "Gears of War" was like a poison. "Gears of War" and "Call of Duty". I played those all the time.

I needed more and more. I couldn't stop and often I would play online with others, Englishmen, Italians, Swedes, lots of different people, six, seven hours a day, and I had a gamer tag. I couldn't call myself Zlatan on the net. So of course, no one knew who was behind my tag.

But I promise you, I impressed people, even under a false name. I had been gaming all my life, and I'm an extreme competitor. I'm focused. I crushed everyone. But sure, there was this other guy; he was also good and online all the time, all through the nights, just like me. His gamer tag was D - something and I heard him talk sometimes. We all had headsets and were talking during and between games.

I tried to be quiet. I wanted to be anononymous. It wasn't always easy. I was full of adrenaline and one of those days people were talking about their cars. D had a Porsche 911 Turbo, he said, and then I couldn't hold back anymore. I had given one of those to Mino after that lunch at Okura in Amsterdam. So I started talking, and I noticed it immediately. People were suspicious. Someone said "you sound like Zlatan." No, no, that's not me. Come on, they went on asking different questions. But I got my way out of it and we started talking Ferraris instead, but that wasn't much better to tell you the truth. "I have one", I said. "Quite a special one, actually."

"What model?"

"You won't believe me if I tell you", I answered, and of course D got curious.

"Come on! Which one is it?"

"It's an Enzo."

He was quiet.

"It doesn't exist."

"Sure it does!"

"An Enzo?"

"An Enzo!"

"Well, then you can only be one person."

"Who?", I tried.

"The one we talked about."

"Maybe", I said. "Maybe not." And we continued playing, and when we didn't play we kept talking, and I questioned the guy a bit and found out that he was a stock broker.

It was easy talking to him. We liked the same things. But he didn't ask me any more about who I was. We talked about other things, and sure, I noticed that he liked football and fast cars. But he wasn't a tough guy, more a sensitive, thinking guy, and one day we were talking about watches and watches is something else I've become interested in. D wanted a very special and expensive watch, and someone else there said "there is a huge waiting list for that one", and maybe there is, but not for me. As a football player in Italy you have things set up for you. You can get past any lines and get discounts on everything, so I joined the chat again:

"I can get one of those for you in a week for so and so much."

"Are you kidding?"

"Of course not!"

"How would we do it?"

"I just call a guy", I said and thought, what do I have to lose?

If D didn't want the watch or was full of shit, I could keep it myself. It wasn't a big deal, and the guy felt reliable, and sure, he was talking about Ferraris and expensive things. But he wasn't the bragging kind. He seemed to like those things, and I said:

"Hey, I'm going to Stockholm soon and will stay at the Scandic Hotel."

"Okay", he said.

"If you are sitting there in the lobby at four o'clock, you will get your watch."

"Are you serious?"

"I'm a serious guy."

After that I called my contact and received that special watch, a very nice little thing, and I sent my bank details to D through my Xbox-account. Not much later I flew to Stockholm. We were playing a Euro qualifier, and as always we stayed at the Scandic Park Hotel. Me and Lagerbäck had reconciled after everything, and I checked into the hotel and said hello to all the guys. In my luggage I had the watch in a little box and like we had agreed, in the afternoon I went down to the lobby. I felt calm. But to be sure I brought the national team's head of security, Janne Hammarbäck.

I had no idea of how D looked or who he was. No matter how nice he had sounded he could be anyone, a maniac with ten crazy friends, not that I thought so, but still. You never know, and I looked to the left and

to the right down there, and the only one I saw was a thin dark guy who sat on a chair and seemed very shy.

"Are you here to get a watch?" I said.

"Yes, I…"

He stood up, and I saw it directly. He became nervous. I think he had already before figured out who I was, but still, then and there it really got to him, like "it's yooou." I had seen it before of course. People get nervous around me, and in situations like that I become more open and friendly and I asked a lot of questions about his work, where he used to hang out and stuff like that. After a while he relaxed too, and then we started talking Xbox. What can I say? It was very nice. It was something new.

My friends from Rosengård are guys from the street: they have a lot of attitude and adrenaline and there's nothing wrong with that, not at all, I grew up with that. But still, this guy, he was intelligent and careful, he was thinking differently, he wasn't macho, not at all, he didn't need to act up, and normally I don't let people in close to me that easily. I've made some mistakes, and often people just want to use me for their own good: I know Zlatan. I'm the coolest.

But I felt it immediately, me and this guy clicked, and I told him: "I'll put the clock at the hotel reception, and as soon as I have the money on my account you can pick it up."

After half an hour he had transferred the money, and we stayed in touch. We texted. We talked on the phone, and he came and visited us in Milan. He was a well behaved Swedish guy who says "It's nice seeing you" and stuff like that. He didn't fit in with my Rosengård friends. But he fitted well in with Helena. He was like her type; finally a guy who doesn't blow off bombs everywhere! He became a new person in my life, and Helena calls him my internet date.

Do you remember "Milen" in Malmö FF, the running race I skipped by taking the bus or steal a bike? That wasn't too long ago, and I was thinking about that sometimes, not only because I had been picked for the first team back then. There was so much that was different. Like those buildings on Limhamnsvägen. How insanely unreachable didn't those feel, especially that pink house which was big as a castle? Back then I just couldn't understand: What kind of people lives like that? They must have amazing lives.

I was still thinking about that, in a way. I didn't feel unsecure in front of those people anymore, on the contrary, but I remember the pain: the pain of being far outside that world, and knowing you're not living under the same conditions. You don't forget those kinds of feelings, and I was still dreaming about revenge - about showing them that I wasn't the guy from Rosengård with the Fido Dido anymore. I was too someone who could sit in a fat ass house, and me and Helena really needed a home in Malmö.

We couldn't live with mom in Svågertorp anymore. We were expecting our second child. I wanted my own fence to blow away and me and Helena drove around checking different houses out. It was a fun thing we just did. We made charts and lists, and what do you think, which house came out on top? The pink one on Limhamnsvägen of course, and not only because of my old dreams. That house was really the best. It was the nicest in Malmö, but of course, there was just one problem.

Some people were living in it, and they weren't selling, so what do you do? That was the question. We decided not to give up. Maybe even give them "an offer they couldn't refuse." Not that I would send my friends from Rosengård. It would be handled with style, but still, we decided to go ahead offensively, and one of those days Helena was out at Ikea.

At Ikea she met a friend, and they started talking about the pink house.

"But you know what, some friends of mine live there", her friend said.

"Set up a meeting. We'd like to talk to them", Helena said.

"Are you kidding?"

"Not at all", and so it happened.

The friend checked things out and called and said that the couple who lived in the house didn't want to sell, no way. The loved it there, the neighbours were nice, the grass was greenm the view towards Ribersborg and Öresund was amazing, bla bla bla. But the friend had her instructions and answered that we wouldn't listen to those things. If they wanted to stay there, no matter what we paid, they could say it

directly to us, and wouldn't it be fun having Zlatan and Helena over for coffee? Hey, doesn't happen to everyone.

They agreed, and me and Helena went there, and I felt immediately that I had the upper hand. I am me, we will work this out, but still, it was double. When I stepped through those gates I felt big and small at the same time, both as that little guy who stared at those houses during "Milen" and also as the biggest star. At first I just walked around with Helena and checked things out, "Nice, nice, you have it really nice here." I handled myself and was polite and all that. But then when we sat down for coffee I couldn't hold myself back anymore.

"We are here because you live in our house", I said, and the man laughed, like it was a joke, and sure, it was a bit of that. It was humor in a way. Like a line from a movie. But I continued:

"Look at it as a joke if you will. But I'm serious. I'm buying this house, I will make sure you are satisfied, but we have to have it", and then he continued, it wasn't for sale, under no conditions.

He was very determined, or more like he pretended to be, because now I heard. It was like on the transfer market. It was a game. The house had a price for him. I could sense it, and I could see it in his eyes, and I explained my philosophy: I don't want to do things I can't handle. I'm a football player. Not a negotiator. I will send a guy to deal with this.

Not Mino, if that was what you were thinking. I had limits. I sent a lawyer, and don't think I'm a fool who throws his money around just like that. I'm tactical. I'm careful about things. It wasn't: "Buy it at any price", nothing like that. It was: "Make sure to buy it, but for as little as possible." And then we sat there at home waiting. It was a bit of a drama. But then the call came. "They sell for thirty", and then there wasn't much more to discuss. We bought it for thirty [ed note: close to three million euros], and to tell you the truth, for that money I think they ran out the door.

I had done it. And sure, it wasn't for free. We had paid to get them out of the house. But still, that was just the beginning. We renovated the place like crazy. We didn't spare any expenses. We weren't allowed to heighten the wall around the property. The city said no. So what to do? We wanted a higher wall. We didn't want fans or stalkers standing outside looking at us. So we dug ourselves down. We lowered the whole thing. Many things like that. We spent a lot and it wasn't always that popular.

The houses in that area usually go in heritage, from one generation to the next. Daddy's money pay and no one from my kind of background had ever moved in there. It was upper class all around, and no one talks like me, no one says the fattest house and stuff like that. Here they say distinguished and extraordinary.

But I wanted to show that a guy like me could get here with his own money. That was important for me from the first minute, and I didn't expect any applause. But still, I was surprised. Fuck, are they doing this and that? They went on like that all the time. They whined. But we didn't care and built the house the way we wanted it.

It was Helena who did it. She was so accurate about things and took help from different museums and god knows what. I wasn't as involved as she was. I didn't have the sense that she did for those things, but I made one contribution. In the entrance, against the red wallpaper, I put up a huge photo of my two dirty feet, and when friends came by they all said cool, what an awesome house. "But what kind of shitty disgusting feet do you have there on the wall?"

"Idiots", I said. "Those feet paid for all this."