ometimes some stuff is in the walls. There are some poison memories in some clubs, like the whole nineties of Inter. Despite having Ronaldo in the team back then they didn’t manage to win the title once. The club lost it on the goal line every time. Like season 1997-98 for example.

I was sixteen, seventeen and didn’t know a thing about Ravelli and the gang, and much about Sweden in general. But I knew Inter. I knew Ronaldo. I studied his tricks and his acceleration. There were a lot of us who did that, like I’ve said before. But no one took it as far as I did. I didn’t miss a detail. Without him I would have been another type of player, I believe that, and I’m not the kind of guy who easily gets impressed. I’ve met all kind of types. I sat with the Swedish king at a dinner in Barcelona, and alright, maybe I thought: Am I holding the fork the wrong way or am I saying you when it should be your highness? But still, it was cool. I’m me. I just do my thing. But with Ronaldo it was different. When I was in Inter he played in Milan, and there’s a film on YouTube where I’m chewing a gum and just watch and watch him, like I can’t understand that I’m on the same pitch as him.

He had such weight. Such a look for the game. Quality in every movement and that season in 1997-98 him and Inter were unbelievable. They won the UEFA-cup and Ronaldo scored twenty five goals and was chosen as the best player in the world for the second time in a row. They dominated Serie A. But they still lost it in the spring, just like we now before the fight against Parma.

Inter had bad luck and trouble and shit and a classic game was played at Stadio delle Alpi in Turin against Juventus in the spring of 1998. Just a point, or two, split the team. It was a complete final in the league and an unbelievable suspense in the air, and Ronald was dribbling in the left of the penalty area. But he was brutally blocked and the whole arena screamed. People went mad. The stadium was boiling. But the referee never whistled. He let the game continue and Juventus won the game by one-zero and later on the whole league, and it was in that moment it all was decided. That’s how people look at it. It was Inter’s evil second. There were still talks about it. It was seen as an obvious penalty. But nothing happened, and there was fury and protests all over Italy and talks about the referee being bribed, or that maybe all the referees were bribed and corrupt and generally stupid, and all the elders of the club had clear memories that all that, especially since stuff like that happened several times at that time for the club. The season before that they also had the Scudetto in one hand just to lose it in the end in a game against Lazio and the next year Ronaldo was injured. Then everything went to hell, just like if the team had lost its drive and will and Inter ended up as number eight in the league, a record low, I think (ed note: think again, bitch, they were once relegated).

No one said it out loud. No one wanted to jinx anything. But a lot of people thought about it before the game against Parma. There were bad feelings. People remembered and were paranoid, and then there was that penalty Materazzi had missed. The guys had several chances to decide the league, but failed every time. It was small things every time, bad luck, mistakes. It was all kinds of shit, and absolutely, everyone was triggered against Parma, ready to do everything. But that itself could also be a problem. People whispered about it. There was a risk that the pressure could be too much. There could be gridlocks, and management forbid us to talk to the press. We were supposed to have full concentration and Mancini who always had press conferences before the games was also quiet, and the only one who said something was Moratti.

He showed up at our hotel the night before the game and didn’t say anything other than “wish us good luck. It’s needed”, to the journalists, and nothing got easier when Parma had to win against us to secure a spot in next year’s Serie A. The opposing team had the same deadly seriousness as us. We weren’t getting anything for free and just before we went to the arena we got the news that our fans weren’t allowed to come and support us.

It was a fairness thing. The Roma supporters weren’t allowed because of security reasons to go to the away game against Catania and that’s why weren’t allowed to bring our fans either. But a lot of people still managed to get in. It was this and that. Every little thing was monitored and discussed and I remember Mancini. He really got mad when he heard that Gianluca Rocchi was going to be the referee.

“That bastard is always against us”, he sputtered and dark clouds were gathering in the sky.

It looked like it was going to rain and I was starting on the bench. I hadn’t played in a long time, and Mancini started with Balotelli and Cruz up top. “But be ready”, he told me, “be ready to jump in”, and I nodded. All of us sat under a little roof and heard the first rain droops falling. Soon it rattled over us and the game started, and the crowd was booing. It was a terrible pressure, and we were dominating. We were pushing and Cruz and Maicon had unbelievable chances, but no, it didn’t work. It looked hopeless and we were following it all from the bench of course, all tense. We were and swearing and hoping, but we looked at the big board all the time as well.

It wasn’t only about our game. It was about Roma’s as well and by this time it was still zero-zero there as well, and that was cool. We were still leading the league. The Scudetto was ours. But then the board blinked. The whole team jumped. No goals for Roma for god’s sake? It would be too cruel. You can’t be in the lead all year and lose it in the last second. That should be forbidden. But yes, Roma had made one-zero against Catania and suddenly we were number two in the league. It couldn’t be happening and I saw everyone on the bench, everyone, all those who were there in the nineties, they remembered. They got pale: Is it happening again? Is the old curse back?

I’ve never seen anything like it. They lost the entire color in their faces, and we also felt it on the pitch. We’re talking about real fear, nothing else. This was not allowed to happen. It was horrible, it was a catastrophe, and the rain just kept pouring. It was really pouring and the home crow shouter out of joy. The result was to their advantage because if also Catania lost, Parma would secure the spot definitely. But for us it felt like death, and the players just got tenser. I saw it in them. They had been carrying crosses on their backs, and I can’t say that I was really happy myself, of course not, but still, I already had three scudetto’s and didn’t really feel the old curse. I was too young for it and for every minute that went on I got more and more focused and triggered. It was like my body was burning.

I was going in and turn this no matter how much pain I was in. I refused to accept anything else, and in the second half when it was still zero-zero and the Scudetto was Roma’s I got orders to warm up, and I remember it very well: everyone was looking at me, Mancini, Mihajlovic, everyone, doctors, everyone, and I saw it in them. They put their hopes on me. You could see it in their eyes. They starred pleadingly at me, and of course, it was impossible to not feel the pressure. “Make this happen for us”, they said one after one.

“I will, I will!”

But I didn’t come in right away in the second half. I came in six minutes in. The grass was wet. It was heavy to run on and I wasn’t in full fitness, and the pressure was incredibly big. But still, I had never been so triggered in my life, and I remember that I almost right away tried a shot in the middle, just outside the box.

It didn’t work. A couple of minutes later I tried again. I missed then as well. It felt like I got the chance from the same position over and over again without getting anything out of it, and in the sixty second minute it happened again. I got the ball in the same position. It was Dejan Stankovic who gave the pass, and I made a guy who threw himself at me and ran towards the goal and every time I touched the ball a little water came up the ground and then I saw a good position and took a shot, not a great shot, not at all.

The shot was on the ground and went towards the left post and into the goal, and instead of making some flashy celebration after the goal I stud stood there and waited, and from the bench and from the pitch they came one after one, everyone, all of them who had looked at me so pleadingly, and I looked at them. The horror was gone, and Dejan Stankovic threw himself at me in the wet grass. It looked like he was praying and thanking the gods. It was hysteria and high up there in the stands Massimo Moratti was cheering, he was almost dancing on his honorary seat, and you could feel it everywhere, in everyone at the club, everyone.

A stone had fallen from their hearts. People got the colors in their faces back. It was much more than a goal. It was like I had saved them from drowning, and I looked at the crowd. Behind the booing the cheers came out from our supporters, and I made a gesture with my hand to my ear: Like, what am I hearing, and then the arena got even crazier and when all the drama had settled the game continued.

After all, nothing was secured yet. Just a goal from Parma and we were back at square one, and the nerves came back, not the old fear, not at all. But no one dared to breathe out. Worse things than a goal had happened in football. But then in the seventy eight minute Maicon dribbled at the right flank, past one, two, three guys and hit a cross and I rushed forward. I came at the same time as the defender, but got a foot on the ball and shot a half volley in goal and can you imagine. I had been gone for two months and the journalists had been writing shit about me and the team.

There had been talks about Inter losing the winning mentality and everything were slipping out of our hands and that I wasn’t a real champion, not like Totti and Del Piero, or even that I wasn’t good when it really mattered. But I had showed them now, and I sank down on my knees in the wet grass and just waited to be jumped on by everyone again, and I felt it in my body: this was big, and not much later the game was over and the Scudetto was ours.

Inter had not won the league in seventeen years. They had a long, heavy period, full of suffering and shit. But then I had come, and now we had won the league two years in a row, it was full circus everywhere. People ran into the pitch, and inside the locker room everyone was jumping and shouting. But then people got quiet. Mancini came in and he hadn’t always been so popular, especially not when he couldn’t make up his mind about his future at the club and not being able to make it in CL. But now he had won the league and the players stepped up to him, one after one, kind of solemnly like that, and took his hand and said: “Thank you very much, you did it for us.” But then Mancini stepped up to me, all high after the victory and all the greetings. It was just that: he didn’t get a thank you from me. I said “You’re welcome”, and people started laughing, like fucking Ibra, and afterwards when I talked to the journalists several of them asked:

“Who do you dedicate this victory to?”

“To you”, I answered. “To media, to everyone who doubted and dissed me and Inter!”

That’s how I work. I always think about the revenge. It’s in me since Rosengård, it’s what drives me, and I don’t forget what Moratti told the media:

“The whole Italy was against us but Zlatan Ibrahimovic was the symbol for our struggle.”

I was chosen as the best player in Serie A that year, and not later that thing about me being the world’s best paid player in the world, and then everything became really sick. I could barely go out and where ever I went it was crazy. Everyone obviously thought that I had negotiated the contract after the Parma game. But the deal had been done seven, eight months earlier, and I thought: Oh My God, Morrati can’t be regretting it now, and after this ending, and I felt, life has turned back again. Now the clouds have cleared. I’d had the chance to hit back. But of course, there were still things to worry about. I felt it right after the Parma game.

My knee had swollen up again. I wasn’t really fully fit and I think it was a chock for most when I had to stay away from the Italian cup final and that was boring. We had the chance for the double, to take the league and the cup. But without me Roma got revenge in the final, and EC was closing in and I had no clue if my knee would be good. I had pressed myself to hard that season. I would pay the price for it.