I am Zlatan ulan

Belli bir şöhrete olaşıp kitap yazmayanı dövüyorlar Türkiye’de ama İsveç’te de durum aynı olabilir. Basın toplantısı tadında bir kitap gibime geldi, kitabın İngilizce tercümesi yok ama önemli bikaç başlık derlenmiş. Birsürü şey var, zırvarlar falan ama Barcelona kısımları çok ilgimi çekti, Barca’daki sükunet ve Guardiola’nın ruhsuzluğu İbo’yu delirtmiş. Kitapta ilginç bir de Pique bölümü varmış ama onunla ilgili notlara henüz ulaşamadık. Kitap 300 sayfadan oluşuyor.

Renkliler daha renkli.

1. “I got a bike when I was little, a BMX. I called it ‘Fido Dido’ after the tough little cartoon guy with spiked hair. I thought he was the coolest thing ever.

2. “I felt like crap when I was sitting in the locker room with Guardiola staring at me like I was an annoying distraction, an outsider. It was nuts. He was a wall, a stone wall. I didn’t get any sign of life from him and I was wishing myself away every moment with the team.”

3. “Then Guardiola started his philosopher thing. I was barely listening. Why would I? It was advanced bullshit about blood, sweat and tears, that kind of stuff.”

4. “Jose Mourinho is a big star…He’s cool. The first time he met my wife he whispered to her: ‘Helena, you have only one mission. Feed Zlatan, let him sleep, keep him happy!’ The guy says what he wants. I like him.”

5. “Mourinho is Guardiola’s opposite. If Mourinho brightens up the room, Guardiola pulls down the curtains and I guessed that Guardiola now tried to measure himself with him.”

6. “An injured Zlatan is a pretty serious thing for any team.”

7. “Lionel Messi is awesome. He’s unbelievable, but I don’t really know him. We are totally different. He came to Barça as a 13-year old. He’s raised in that culture and has no problems with that ‘school’ shit. In the team, the play is all around him, pretty naturally actually. He’s brilliant, but now I had arrived at Barca and scored more goals than him.”

8. “It was a childhood dream to play for Barca and I was walking on air. It started well but then Messi started to talk. He wanted to play in the middle, not on the wing, so the system changed. I was sacrificed.”

9. “I barely yelled at my teammates any more. Something had happened, nothing serious, not yet, but still. I became quiet and that’s lethal, believe me. I have to be angry to play well. I have to scream and shout. Now I kept it in.”

10. “I asked for a meeting with Guardiola – for a discussion, not an argument. I said I was being used in the wrong way and that they shouldn’t have bought me if they wanted another type of player.

“I told him what a friend had said to me – ‘you bought a Ferrari but drive it like a Fiat’. The chat seemed to go well but then Guardiola started to freeze me out.”

11. “I would walk into a room; he would leave. He would greet everyone by saying hello, but would ignore me. I had done a lot to adapt – the Barca players were like schoolboys, following the coach blindly, whereas I was used to asking ‘why should we?”

12. “At Barca, players were banned from driving their sports cars to training. I thought this was ridiculous – it was no one’s business what car I drive – so in April, before a match with Almeria, I drove my Ferrari Enzo to work. It caused a scene.”

13. “Guardiola was staring at me and I lost it. I thought ‘there is my enemy, scratching his bald head!’. I yelled to him: ‘You have no balls!’ and probably worse things than that.

“I added: ‘You are shitting yourself because of Jose Mourinho. You can go to hell!’. I was completely mad. I threw a box full of training gear across the room, it crashed to the floor and Pep said nothing, just put stuff back in the box. I’m not violent, but if I were Guardiola I would have been frightened.”

14. On reports of ‘excessive behaviour’ following Juventus’ 2005 title win: “It was the fault of David Trezeguet, who made me do one drink of vodka after another. I slept in the bathtub. Now I hold my vodka much better.”

15. When asked about Mario Balotelli’s recent tomfoolery: “I like fireworks too, but I set them off in gardens or kebab stands. I never set fire to my own house.”