First published as a hardback by deCoubertin Books Ltd in 2018.
First Edition.
deCoubertin Books, 46B Jamaica Street, Baltic Triangle, Liverpool, L1 0AF.
www.decoubertin.co.uk
eISBN: 978-1-909245-69-3
Copyright © John Arne Riise and Jens M. Johansson, 2018.
Translation copyright © Pilar Forlag, 2018
The right of John Arne Riise and Jens M. Johansson to be identified as the co-authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be left liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Translation by Paul Russell Garrett.
Cover design by Thomas Regan/Milkyone.
Typeset by Leslie Priestley.
Printed and bound by Jellyfish.
The author has received support from The Norwegian Non-fiction Literary Fund.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by the way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it was published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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If we have overlooked you in any way, please get in touch so that we can rectify this in future editions.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Career
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Blissful baby and toddler years in Norway with mum and dad. Childhood and adolescence would pose more challenges.
Childhood and adolescence would pose more challenges.
Same stadium, different teams. Playing for Monaco against Nancy.
Scoring for Liverpool in Monaco against Bayern Munich.
A thrilling start at Liverpool with goals against their greatest rivals, Everton and Manchester United in the space of a few weeks.
My first serious trophy at Liverpool was the League Cup with a 2-0 victory over Manchester United.I marked David Beckham that day.
Celebrating another Steven Gerrard goal against Everton.
Early days with Norway in La Manga, Spain ahead of Euro 2000.
Attempting to qualify for Euro 2004 against Spain in Madrid.
The miracle of Istanbul.
Scoring a crucial free kick against Chelsea in the 2006 FA Cup semi-final.
The relief ! Having missed my penalty in Istanbul, I just had to score against West Ham in the FA Cup final twelve months later.
The joys of being Craig Bellamy’s teammate…
We put aside our differences and both scored in the Nou Camp in 2007.
A challenging 18 months. Despair against Chelsea after scoring an own goal in the Champions League.
Giving evidence against my former agent, Einar Baardsen.
Another goal, this one in the San Siro for Roma.
Later celebrating too with Francesco Totti, the club’s icon.
Back in the Premier League with Fulham and facing Liverpool.
Preparing for a Champions League game against Barcelona with APOEL Nicosia. I say preparing…
Re-signing for my first club Aalesund in 2016.
This would bring me closer again to my brother.
Roberto Carlos is a legendary left back and he was my manager at Delhi Dynamos in India.
A country I would return to with Chennaiyin, where the coach was Marco Materazzi.
THAT selfie with Khloe Kardashian.
Being dad.
Catching up in Liverpool with Steven Gerrard.
Being Norway’s most capped player in history makes me very proud.
Prologue
‘Should we start again?’
‘Is it recording?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was the question?’
‘Whether you realise that not everyone likes you’
‘I get that. Sure.’
‘How’s that?’
‘There are plenty of times when I haven’t much liked myself either.’
‘You’re laughing?’
‘Yes, but it’s because this is something I’d rather not talk about.’
‘What, that you don’t always like yourself?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose I’m okay with that to a point. I suppose most people feel that way. We don’t always behave the way we want to. No, there’s something else that’s far worse to consider. It’s the fact that, after all, I know the circumstances surrounding everything that has happened. Imagine all the people who only know the version that has been told so far. What must they think of me?’
‘What do you think they think?’
‘If all I knew was that version, then I wouldn’t have liked myself one bit. Who likes that guy?’
‘ … ’
‘Can’t we talk about something different? Can’t we start somewhere else?’
1
THE SOUND OF STUDS HITTING THE FLOOR IN THE PLAYERS’ TUNNEL. AC Milan have humiliated us in the first half. They’re ahead by a score of 3–0. We tumble into the dressing room. Nobody says a thing. I find my spot, slump down. The final of the Champions League, 25 May 2005. The whole world is watching us, and we’ve made a fool of ourselves. Sure, Milan have been on us like tigers, but above all else we’ve made a fool of ourselves. The most important match of our lives and we’ve been completely outplayed. I can hear the singing on the terraces outside, through the concrete of the Atatürk Stadium in Istanbul. Our travelling supporters are singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. It’s an act of defiance, an impressive show of solidarity. The stadium is no more than three years old, everything around us in the dressing room is new, but we are worn out and broken.
Rafael Benítez enters the dressing room three or four minutes later; he always gives us time to gather our thoughts on our own. He’s calm, as always. He indicates on the board that he wants to switch to 3-5-2, in part to get Steven Gerrard higher up the pitch. Djimi Traoré is to be taken off, so he hits the showers. But then it turns out that Steve Finnan has an injury. Finn doesn’t want to be taken out. In despair he begs Benítez to let him stay on the pitch but it’s no use. The physiotherapist says he’s strained his groin and that he needs to be subbed. Traoré is called back, and he has to dry himself off and get dressed. Dietmar Hamann is going on.
Benítez looks around. ‘Is this how we want to be remembered?’ He tells us that it’s a matter of pride now, what else is he going to say? We have to play for our self-respect and for the fans who have saved up enough money to buy the expensive tickets to watch us play tonight. I hear the singing again; it’s not letting up. ‘Let’s just try to score the next goal,’ Benítez says. ‘Then we’ll see what happens.’ We’re listening, but we’re also aware that this edition of Milan is the best in the world at defending a lead. The idea that they’re going to concede three goals in one half is impossible to imagine.
Stevie is sitting next to me. As team captain, he tries to rally the troops, and he gets us screaming and shouting, but I’m certain that he and all the others are thinking the same thing as I am when we get up and head towards the grass and the stadium full of spectators: Don’t let it get any worse. Spare us that. Don’t let us be the team that loses 6–0 in a Champions League final. Our friends and family are watching.
2
I WASN’T LIKED AS A CHILD. THAT’S THE WAY I REMEMBER IT. I WASN’T invited to birthday parties by the other kids in the class, even though I invited them. They turned eight, nine, ten years old. I saw the invitations being handed out, practically in secret, but children pick up on things like that, particularly children faced with unpopularity day in, day out, children who find their spot in the classroom and sit there quietly. Of course I saw them, the ones who were having a party, sneaking between the rows of desks with stacks of invitations, and every time I hoped one of the envelopes was for me.
I don’t know what it was about me they didn’t like. I didn’t bother anyone. I was a quiet boy.
We moved to Hessa, a quiet suburban island in the municipality of Ålesund, on the North Sea coast of Norway, when I was starting Year Two of school. We lived in Slinningsodden, on the very tip of Hessa. I had completed Year One in Holmestrand in Eastern Norway. I don’t remember much of it, but I think it was fine. Saying that, my parents got divorced before I started school. My dad moved out. Back then my name was John Arne Eikrem. I remember sharing a room with my little brother. I was six and he was three. We had separate beds. He seemed so little, and I wanted to protect him. I also wanted to protect my dad. I felt sorry for my dad, who couldn’t live with us anymore and had to move into an empty house. I thought pappa must be lonely. He only lived a couple of houses down from us, but he was alone. Some nights I couldn’t stop crying. I don’t know whether it was the thought of him sitting alone in the living room of his house, the fact that I missed him, or because I sometimes heard crying from my little brother’s bed and I couldn’t bear it. I remember Pappa coming to see us. I don’t know how many times, maybe only once or twice, but I remember it clearly. Him sitting on the edge of the bed, hugging me, saying that everything was going to be all right. His smell. Him comforting my brother.
But then we moved away from him, to Hessa. That’s just the way it was. I started Year Two after the summer. I was the new boy with ginger hair and freckles. Skin as white as a sheet.
Maybe that’s why they didn’t like me.
We didn’t have much money. My mum worked two or three jobs in order to support us. We often spent the holidays at home or went on camping trips. On Hessa we lived in a red, two-storey terraced house. My little brother and I shared a room in the basement. At night you could see the lights of Ålesund city centre on the other side of the bay. But I don’t remember much from my childhood. I’ve wiped out almost all of my childhood memories.
Mum grew up in Sunndalsøra, and she met Pappa when she started on the athletics programme in Tingvoll. These areas are all local to Ålesund. If athletic talent is inherited, mine definitely comes from her. She was a goalkeeper in the district football team, an elite gymnast and was active in track and field. She was seventeen and he was twenty when they got together. Three years later I was born, and since there was no hospital in Sunndalsøra, Mamma was driven to Molde. I came into the world on 24 September 1980. It was a long and difficult delivery. I should actually have been named Johan Arne, after my grandfather, but I’m happy it ended up being John Arne. Mum calls me Jonnen, she always has. Otherwise I’m just Riise. That’s what my friends call me. Riise. I like it. I’ve even tattooed the name across my back. After wearing all those football jerseys with Riise on the back, I felt like it was a part of me. Part of my body.
Obviously I’ve read the things my mum has said about Pappa, that he hit her when he was drinking. I’ve read that how with me and my little brother in tow, she tried to escape him, but didn’t succeed, and in the end he landed in prison. Horrible things, but I don’t remember any of that happening. I don’t know what did or didn’t happen, but I know that he was not kind to her. Still, I have no memories of him being violent. He drank, but never in front of us kids.
There is so much from my childhood that I don’t remember, so much I don’t know. I haven’t wanted to ask mum for fear of opening up old wounds. Why did the family move to Holmestrand when I was little? Was it because mum’s oldest brother lived there, so he could protect her if necessary? All I remember is that I always had a football at my feet, the feeling of the large ball against my shoe, the sound of leather on asphalt, and that I played for my first football club in Holmestrand, and that even at the age of five or six I was better and stronger than the kids I played with. Even then I loved to shoot. I slept with the ball at night. Every morning I tried to juggle the ball all the way to school without letting it hit the ground. And on my way home.
I don’t know if I erased the painful memories or if I’ve never had them. And because there’s no way of knowing, because there’s a void, then it could have been something that latched on to me when I came to the new school, I think. Children are at their most ruthless when they get wind of insecurity. Maybe they noticed something about me that I wasn’t aware of, or that I thought I could hide as long as I kept quiet. I remember that I cried a lot.
The only record I have of Pappa and Mum is a photo of us sitting on a patio at a holiday camp, the three of us. I must have been six or seven. That’s it.
I have one full sibling, Bjørn Helge, my brother. We’ve always been very close, but he doesn’t want to talk about Pappa and I respect that. Then I have two half-sisters. They are Mum and Thormod’s children. I was seven or so when Mum married Thormod, and I hated him when he turned up. Here he was, thinking he could take Pappa’s place. But Thormod was the nicest man in the world. It can’t have been easy coming into our family, with all our baggage, but he took care of us. Bjørn and I took his name: Riise. It’s his name I have tattooed on my back. I have wondered about adding Eikrem too, but I haven’t wanted to hurt Mum or Thormod. Mum wanted me to have Semundseth on my jersey, her family name, but I decided on Riise at an early stage. I think Mum would have been devastated if Thormod had left her, and I wanted to honour him. But Eikrem is also my dad’s name. I have two dads. Hans Eikrem was also Pappa. And I’m older now, freer, stronger. That’s why I’m considering getting a tattoo of his name, too. It might be the time for it. This is my life, my body. I decide.
3
I OFTEN FELT LONELY, SITTING ON MY OWN WITH NO ONE TO TALK TO. I had no friends to ring. When I was twelve, I started to get up at quarter to six every morning. It didn’t matter if the rain was pouring, if the trees were bent over in the wind, if there was snow drifting, if the sun was shining or if it was freezing cold; I was going outside. Everyone in the house was asleep, and I changed into my tracksuit without waking anyone. Then I ran. The same route every morning, up Hessaskaret and onwards. I’d run for an hour. I often crossed paths with the newspaper carrier. I’m going to show them, I told myself. I’m going to show them. I ran for all I was worth. I thought about the kids who were mean to me at school. I have long since wiped their names from my mind, I didn’t want them there, but I would picture them while I strained my body, see their faces, hear them and take on even more. My lungs could hardly cope, but I forced myself to run faster. They were bloody well going to see.
Back home I showered, and before I headed off to school I grabbed my packed lunch with the dozen or so sandwiches Mum had left for me. After school I went straight to football training with Skarbøvik/Hessa. Later I would stand outside shooting at a wooden goal that we had built in a spot right near the house, full of rocks and gravel. I had a hard shot. For hours on end I would stand there and practiSe my shot, grinding away at my technique, striking the ball at just the right spot. I worked on my strength and learned to throw the ball far. In the evening I went running again. I liked to run. It felt like payback when I raced along. It was my refuge. I was alone, which I was used to, but here I had to be alone. I loved to run. Twenty-one sessions a week. I was twelve, and if Skarbøvik/Hessa won 21–0, I might have scored nineteen of those goals. I would get the ball from the keeper, dribble past everyone and score. It was easy enough. In the end Mum rang Aalesunds FK, the biggest club in the city, and told them that I had to train with them, but not with the kids my age. I was far too good for that, as she put it.
We’ve always talked like that, she and I. It’s like we’re in motion at all times, always moving forward. There were obstacles that had to be overcome, it was like that from the very start. There was a sense of resistance that meant we probably seemed overly cocky. Or rather, we were cocky. We just didn’t risk gift-wrapping it, like others could take the liberty to. Our life was not like that. Our experience required us to fight for what we deserved. For that reason we probably seemed overwhelming and persistent, and we were. The people at Aalesund must have thought Mum was a fool for saying what she did, that she was just shamelessly boasting of her son’s talent, as though all parents didn’t do that when they contacted the club, but I was that good. And then the other parents got cross at the idea that I was somehow better than their child because I played in the age group up. I started to think about these parents too while I ran at the crack of dawn, the people who wanted to deny me the right to play with players who were older than me, who were a match for me. I also thought of the coaches who perhaps did not want to let me in. The menfolk were also going to see, that’s what Mum called them: the menfolk. They were all going to see. It was Mum and I against the world.
There was a hill near where we lived, it was two or three hundred metres high. Mum stood at the top with a stopwatch. Then I sprinted up. I was given my time, then I strolled back down and sprinted up from the bottom of the hill once again. It was a monster of a hill. She screamed and hollered and urged me to push myself even harder. Over and over again I did it. Morning after morning I ran, lap after lap. I had no sporting role model. I didn’t support any particular club in England or anything. This was my struggle.
4
I STOOD IN THE STREET OUTSIDE OUR RED HOUSE PLAYING KEEPY-UP, like I often did. I looked at the world around me while I stood there on the asphalt. It was February and grey. Quiet. But on this day a removals van showed up on the street. The car drove past and stopped in front of the neighbouring house. A dark-haired boy my age stepped out of the car with his parents. He just stood there looking at me. The parents started to carry furniture inside, but he came over and watched me juggling the ball. He didn’t say anything, and I realised that he didn’t speak Norwegian. But all that was needed was a look and a brief nod, and soon we were playing together. His name was Nikola. He and his parents had fled the war in Bosnia and ended up in the house next to ours on Slinningsodden. I was thirteen then. Soon I was eating at the Andelics’ more often than at home. We felt equally excluded, the two of us. That was probably what tied us together. And football, obviously. We played all the time. In addition, things were different at their house. The food his mum and dad made didn’t taste like what I got at my home. They were cooking all the time, it seemed. A lot of meat and bread. Everyone was allowed to eat with their hands. And the atmosphere during the meals was like nothing I had ever experienced. Their conversations were so loud that I often thought that they were fighting. Cigarettes everywhere. But most importantly, they were different. There was a freedom to discover, there were different ways to live, and there was a world outside Slinningsodden and Ålesund.
When I divorced for the first time, I rang Nikola and asked him to come and live with me in Liverpool. He flew straight over, planning to stay for three weeks, but he ended up staying with me for nearly two years. It was fantastic. We bought a new pool table, knocked out walls and made a big conservatory, furnished as a pool and TV-room with all kinds of games. He helped me with everything, sorted things out for me, came to the home matches at Anfield. He met his wife at the training ground right near where we lived. Amanda was a physiotherapist at Liverpool.
I think I was thirteen when I spent the summer with Pappa. It is one of the best memories I have. We hadn’t seen each other for a long time. I was meant to stay for two weeks, but it ended up being four. I woke up in the morning with him in the kitchen in the house in Holmestrand, sitting and listening to the radio, holding a cigarette in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. Bread and sandwich fillings were left out for me. It was just the two of us that summer. My little brother didn’t want to stay with him. Mum had sent me with a training programme that I was meant to follow all summer, but I couldn’t be bothered. Pappa and I played a little football in the garden. We went swimming at the beach. We filled out football coupons together at the local shop – he was really interested in football. We often went down to a pub down by the water. My dad liked to play darts. We played against each other at the Gjesten Pub, and then we ordered pyttipanne – a Scandinavian dish similar to hash – and ate together. I practised day and night on a dart board in the guest room in his house in an effort to beat him, but never did. Four weeks, just the two of us. The summer of 1994. The way I remember it, the sun was shining the entire time. Of course I didn’t know it back then, but after that summer we would never speak to each other again.
What I’m going to say now is probably hard to believe, but I promise it’s the truth. At the end of that summer is when I decided. Not some childish whim, I really decided. It was autumn, I was only thirteen and I made a decision: I was going to be Norway’s best football player of all time.
I remember getting injured in a match against boys who were two or three years older than me. I was kicked to the ground. It hurt like hell. I was driven to the emergency room, and the doctor said that there was a fracture on the outside of my foot. He said they could operate but that would mean I wouldn’t be able to play football for a while. Or I could let it heal on its own. I chose the latter. I was thirteen and couldn’t afford any time out at that age, I thought. That’s been my thinking throughout my journey. I have to keep moving forward. I have to be the best. It might as well hurt.
5
I FITTED IN A LITTLE BETTER AT MIDDLE SCHOOL THAN I DID AT primary school. At Skarbøvika there were a couple of us who hung out, most likely because we were frozen out by the others. But I still couldn’t wait to get out of there. In Year 9, I started to train with the Aalesund first team. The big star at the time was Erling Ytterland. He came from Ålesund but had played in the top division for several clubs including Vålerenga, before returning to his hometown club. I was fifteen. We trained at Nørvebana, which was a gravel pitch back then. During my first training session with the team I got the ball at my feet and Ytterland came to close me down, so I nutmegged him, then I hammered the ball in the corner of the net. I remember the players laughing and someone shouting: ‘Right, welcome to the men’s team, then!’
I decided to join the elite athletes programme at Fagerlia upper secondary school, even though it was a four-year programme, not the usual three years. I kind of looked forward to starting. It was a new chance – the students came from different parts of Ålesund, so they didn’t know that I was the unpopular boy who nobody wanted to hang out with. I thought I could start over at the school, come in as a first-team player, the only one at the school playing on the national youth team. But at the same time I dreaded it, because I was still the same. Just as ginger, just as pale, and I still skulked around the way I always had, practically hiding under my hoody.
I played my first match for Norway’s Under -15s that summer while I waited for my new life to start. On 5 July 1996 we met Sweden in Sandefjord. We lost both that and the return fixture, but later that summer we crushed Finland, and against the Finns I scored two goals. The next day I also scored against the Faroe Islands, but then so did a lot of people.
My first-team debut at Aalesunds Fotballklubb was in May the following year, and I was thrilled to get the opportunity. I was brought on as a substitute against Odd. I wore number 23, and the goal was to get a squad number from 11 and below, because back then it wasn’t trendy to have a high number. In my third match, this time at home at Kråmyra Stadion, I scored three minutes after I was brought on as a substitute. But I should mention that it was against Drøbak-Frogn, and we were still floundering at the bottom of the Norwegian second division. We were playing against clubs like Eik-Tønsberg, Byåsen and Ullern. Small clubs.
At school, things started to look up. Nikola was in my class, which helped. Along with another guy from the neighbourhood, we’d become a kind of three-leaf clover. The last guy – Dan Tore Tapus – was a goalkeeper, but he went to the Latin School. Slowly I started to make some friends. Cecilie, Lise, Helene, Elisabeth, all of whom played handball, Thomas and Marius, the son of Bobbo, our manager at Aalesund. But even though I made friends, I did nothing but train. I was really dull. I don’t know what the others did, but I just trained, trained and trained some more. I had to. Wearing myself out sheltered me from the outside world in some way. But just knowing that I had people who wanted to be friends with me meant a lot. Sometimes we went bowling at Moa, the shopping centre in Ålesund. But I never touched alcohol or anything else. I was already playing on the first team, so I was away a lot on the weekends. I didn’t go out chasing girls. It would be a couple of years before I even kissed one.
I played nine first-team matches during the 1997 season, usually as a substitute. The next season I was a regular starter, and temporarily I was given the number 10, an important number. But we were still struggling at the bottom of the table. In August, the Nordic championship for the boys and junior teams was held in Norway. I was seventeen and had completed my second year at Fagerlia. My marks weren’t bad. I had improved in maths and got a six in the oral exam and a five in the written. I’ve always been good at maths. I was playing in the first team, it was the middle of the season and I didn’t get much of a summer holiday to speak of. The World Cup in France had finished a month earlier, and I had watched Norway beat Brazil and got lost in a daydream, hoping that one day it would be me playing in the World Cup. Ole Gunnar Solskjær, who had gone to Manchester United in the summer of 1996, had started one match and come on as a substitute in two others. He was 25, I was seventeen. It was summer, and the radio was still playing Ricky Martin’s ‘La Copa de la Vida’ ad infinitum.
As usual I shared a room with Magne Hoseth. He was the big star in these age-determined national youth teams. He was the undisputed number 10 and our captain, but we had just played Sweden on a pitch in Toten, with a view of Lake Mjøsa, and I had had a massive match. It was 11 August 1998. We were staying at a hotel in Hamar. We had just gone to bed when the phone rang. Magne picked up but quickly handed the receiver to me: ‘It’s for you.’
‘For me? … Hello?’
The man, who was speaking Swedish, said he was an agent named Anders Wallsten.
‘Yeah, yeah, whatever,’ I replied and hung up.
He called back, and I was convinced it was just someone messing with me. Anyway, agents weren’t allowed to ring players in their rooms. ‘If it’s urgent, you’d better ring my mum,’ I finally said.
We were almost asleep when the phone rang for a third time. This time it was Mum. She told me off, said that I should speak properly when people rang me. Then she said that the Swedish agent, who was based in Switzerland, was a scout for AS Monaco and the club wanted me to come straight down after the second leg against Sweden two days later. I remember travelling to Dokka, where the next match was to be played, and thinking: What is going on here? I mean, France had just won the World Cup, several of the players on their team that had crushed Brazil in the final in front of 80,000 mad fans at the Stade de France played for Monaco. I mean … I was really not that good in that match against the Swedish juniors at Dokka Stadion.
A few days later we flew to Nice from Fornebu Airport. There was my mum, my uncle, an agent and me. Obviously we weren’t exactly used to this. We had business-class tickets, were picked up by a driver at the airport and put up in a suite in Monte Carlo. Our luggage was taken care of. The climate was also far hotter than I was used to, and palm trees lined the streets. While my mum and the agent were in meetings – people from Aalesunds Fotballklubb were also there – I was driven to the training facility, La Turbie, which is located on a hill a little north of Monaco. And there they were, doing shooting practice: Thierry Henry and David Trezeguet. In goal was Fabien Barthez, who was dating the supermodel Linda Evangelista at the time. I was led over to them, and they said hello to me. In addition to the boys’ national team, I had played 26 first-team matches for Aalesund, that was it. My salary was 1250 kroner a month, just under £200 now, plus a free monthly travel card, and I stood there in the baking sun, 450 metres above the Riviera, shaking hands with World Cup heroes Henry, Trezeguet and Barthez.
The sporting director at Aalesund emerged from the meeting with the biggest grin I’ve ever seen. I realised at once that it had gone well. Aalesund were going to get 7.5million kroner upon signing, and another 7.5million when I had played fifty matches for Monaco. Fifteen million kroner – just over £2million in today’s market – for a seventeen-year-old with a handful of matches at the bottom of Norway’s second division. I was going to receive ten percent of the transfer fee, but I was not preoccupied by my own contract. That’s the truth. I was seventeen. I liked the fact that the club offered to fly my mum and three others business class to Monaco every two weeks, putting them up in a hotel for two weeks of the month, meaning I’d only spend half of the month alone. I didn’t want to be left to my own devices. Even though I had only been around for seventeen years, I had been lonely enough to last a lifetime, I thought.
I was given two days to decide. We flew back home, but I had already made my mind up – I was only going back to pack. Four days had passed since Monaco’s scouts had called me at the hotel room. Everything happened insanely quickly. He had called on Tuesday night. It was Saturday. On Sunday I ate a farewell dinner with Nikola and Dan Tore. The others that I had become friends with also came to Peppes Pizza on Parkgata in the city centre. We sat by ourselves in a corner of the restaurant. They were going to start the new school year together the next morning. They were going to see each other there, without me. I was leaving to live alone in a city with strange streets. I didn’t speak a word of French. I remember one of them getting up. They had made a picture for me. It was a photo of each of them glued onto a poster. Above it they had written: You have to remember us.
I’d never experienced anything like that before. That kind of friendship, love expressed in that way. I came home around ten that Sunday night. I bawled my eyes out, stormed into the living room and screamed: ‘I’m not going! I’m not going!’
Mum still claims that she was the one who decided I should go. I knew that Rosenborg had been in touch and wanted me to go there, that I could move to Trondheim and start school there. I tried to reason that it was a better alternative, then I wouldn’t have to move so far away. Then I could come to Ålesund on the weekends.
Mum was firm, but she was not the one who made the call. I went through the advantages and disadvantages with my brother in the bedroom. We rattled them off. Before I went to sleep, I said to him: ‘So it’s a no, then.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s a no.’
That night I had a dream, a dream of me running into a stadium. It was packed, and the fans roared when they spotted me. Everyone looked at me and I got goose pimples all over my body.The feeling was better than anything I had ever experienced.
I woke up before anyone else in the house. I went straight to my mum, it was five or six o’clock in the morning, I remember her dishevelled head poking up from under the duvet. ‘We have to go.’
The plane was taking off in only a few hours.
On the way to the airport we stopped at the school. I stood by the teacher’s desk and said goodbye to the class. On the plane, my face was white as a sheet. I didn’t want to sit next to my mum. Grandma was with us, too. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I sat on my own and looked out the window, saw the city with all my friends disappear beneath me. Then I cried. It’s still painful to think about it. I was just a child, and I was going to be alone again, like I had been for most of my life.
6
I LIVED IN A HOTEL FOR THREE MONTHS–LE MÉRIDIEN–BEFORE MOVING into a studio flat that was fourteen square metres. Not that I suffered any distress in that respect – the balcony was fifteen square metres and had a direct view of the famous Monte Carlo casino just down the street. I never went, I’ve still never been. I didn’t go out much. I should have strolled around the harbour and checked out the luxury yachts or the cars outside the casino, the rows of Ferraris, Bentleys, Rolls Royces and everything else there, especially since I’m so fascinated by cars. But I mostly sat inside playing video games. I sat there, in a practically empty studio flat, with a big screen. Only one of my teammates spoke English when I arrived: a guy from Portugal named Costinha, a defensive midfielder who was six years older than me. He was a big help.
I started to train with the first team right away. I was not sent to the development squad or the youth team first, as I had expected. At the very first training session the team had to complete a running test. That was something I could do, it was just a matter of running. All the mornings running around Slinningsodden, I figured, had helped.
The sun was at its peak. It was over forty degrees. Normally I would have taken a position at the front, instead I found a place in the middle of the pack, thinking I should hang back a little. I didn’t even know how far we were supposed to run. I didn’t know the drill and didn’t understand what was being said. The stars didn’t last very long, this wasn’t something they needed to be good at, but soon more players started to slow up. I continued to hold back, seeing the squad thin out in front of me. People dropped off one by one. We ran round and round. I could see Henry and Trezeguet and the others sat down drinking water and watching us. I sensed they were following me extra close, the new guy who was only seventeen years old. Now there were two, three, four of us in a row and I realised what the drill was all about. We had to run until we couldn’t run anymore. So I picked up the pace. In the end there was only one other person who could stay with me, one of the Senegalese players in the squad, Moussa N’Diaye. But I was really going now, I had loads of energy, and the others were observing from the sidelines. In the end the manager had to intervene: ‘Stop, stop!’ he shouted.
Afterwards we did a few quick ball drills. I noticed the others grabbing a drink from the water bottles, but I didn’t dare. I didn’t know if the manager allowed it. I didn’t want to do anything that wasn’t allowed during my first training session as a professional football player, so I didn’t have a drop of water.
But my running had gained me the respect of the others. The stars came over and we exchanged a few words. They nodded in acknowledgement and from their looks I could see that they were impressed. In the dressing room I felt that I was accepted almost immediately.
In one of my first training sessions we had shooting practice. I had a hard shot, I really did. On this occasion I struck one ball particularly cleanly, and Fabien Barthez threw himself to the ground to stop it. He got a hand on the ball and shouted in pain. He had a small fracture in his wrist, and had to tape it up for the first part of the season.
The manager, the former French international, Jean Tigana, was happy with my efforts, but he didn’t speak English. I remember when I was going to make my first start. It was against Bastia in Corsica in November 1998. ‘You play left.’ That was all he said. Where on the left? On the left of defence, in midfield, in attack? It turned out that he’d meant for me to play left of the two central midfielders. That became clear from all his gesticulating once the match had started. I got a yellow card. We lost 3–1, but I soon learned French. I’ve always had a good ear for languages. The next match I started was against Nancy, two league matches later. We won 3–0.
I’m not fond of being alone. It makes me feel insecure. Despite the regular visits from Norway I often felt lonely. I’d sit on my bed wondering why Pappa hadn’t contacted me, especially now I had become a pro. He was so obsessed by football, so he must have been proud. More than four years had passed since our summer together in Holmestrand. Not a peep from him. But I told myself that maybe it was normal because of the divorce and everything that had happened between him and Mum. Also, this was before text messages, it was not simply a matter of sending off a quick message or a congratulations, it required more to contact someone.
A lot of know-it-alls had cried foul, stating that I was far too young to travel abroad. For example, the head of talent at the Football Association of Norway told the newspapers that he didn’t think I was ready for Monaco, that the move could put a brutal end to my career. A lot of people said things like that. And something inside me obviously thought that they might be right, not least when I was sitting alone in the studio flat on the third floor. After all they were older and had experienced more than I had. I was just a seventeen-year-old boy when I left. But another part of me thought: Damn it, I’ll show you. I’ll make them shut their traps. What they said annoyed me to no end, and that thought helped me to hold out. I soon realised: I’m strong. I can adjust. I can live according to where I am. They’re not going to come and tell me that they know what I can and can’t handle. I decide that.