2013 - 2014 Football Thread - Page 831

Around this time with played a friendly with Sweden against Holland in Stockholm. Just a friendly, but none of us had forgotten the loss in the Euros and of course we wanted to show that we could beat Holland. The whole team was full of revenge, and it was an offensive, quite aggressive game, and already early in the game I got the ball just outside the box. Immediately four dutch players were all over me. One of them was Rafael van der Vaart, and they were all pulling me. It was a tough situation, but I pushed my way through it and got the ball to Mattias Jonson who was all clear. He scored 1-0, and afterwards van der Vaart was lying down and had pains. He was carried out on a stretcher with an injury to a ligament in his ankle, he wasn't too badly injured. But maybe he would miss a game or two, and in the newspapers he said that I had injured him deliberately. I jumped. What kind of shit was that? It wasn't even a foul, and he's talking about deliberately. And that guy was my captain!

I called him: "Listen, I'm sorry, I'm sad about your injury, and I apologize, I didn't do it on purpose, do you hear me?" And I said the same thing to the press. I said it a hundred times. But van der Vaart continued talking, and I just couldn't understand it. Why the fuck would he talk shit about his own teammate? It was insane. Or was it really?

I started thinking, because don't forget, it was August and the transfer window was open. Maybe he wanted to fight his way out of the club? Or fight ME out of the club for that matter? It wasn't the first time tricks like that were used, and the guy got media down there with him too. He was the dutch guy. He was the darling of the gossip pages, and I was the bad boy and all that, the foreigner. "Are you serious?", I said when I met him at practice. And apparently he was.
"Okay, okay", I said. "Then let me tell you one last time. It was not on purpose. Do you hear me?"
"I hear you!"
Still he wouldn't back an inch, and the atmosphere in the club became more and more intense. The whole team was divided in two. The dutch were on Rafael's side, and the foreigners on mine. Eventually Koeman called for a meeting, and by that time the whole thing was driving me insane. What the fuck? Accuse me of shit like that? I was boiling inside and up there in the lunch room on the third floor we all sat down in a circle, and I could feel it in the air immediately. It was serious. The management had decided we had to reconcile. We were key players and we had to be friends. But there weren't exactly any openings. Rafael went on harder than ever.
"Zlatan did it on purpose", he said and my eyes turned black.
What the fuck, why couldn't he just give up?
"I didn't hurt you on purpose, and you know that, and if you accuse me of that one more time I will break both your legs. And this time it will be on purpose", I said, and of course, everyone on van der Vaart's side started: "You see, you see, he's aggressive. He's crazy", and Koeman tried to calm things down:
"We don't have to go that far, we will work this out."

But to tell the truth, it didn't feel likely, and then we were called up to Louis van Gaal, the director. He and I had some fights before, and it didn't feel like the best thing to go there together with van der Vaart. It wasn't exactly like I was surrounded by friends, and van Gaal started his power talk immediately:
"I am the director here", he said.
Like, thanks for the info!
"And I'm telling you", he continued. "Bury the hatchet. When Rafael is well again, you are playing together!"
"Definitely not", I said. "As long as he's on the field, I'm not playing."
"What are you saying?", van Gaal replied. "He is my captain, you will play with him! You do it for the club."
"Your captain?" I said. "What kind of bullshit is that? Rafael goes to the media and says I injured him on purpose. What kind of captain is that? One who attacks his own teammates? I'm not playing with him, not a chance. Never. You can say whatever you want."
And then I left. It was a risky gamble. But of course, I was empowered by knowing I had things going with Juventus.