Gunning for Greatness: My Life: With an introduction by Jose Mourinho Read online

  We’d entered the knockout phase as the runner-up in our group. England, our opponents in the final, had topped it. In the group match we’d drawn our encounter. In the semi-final we’d beaten an Italian side containing Mario Balotelli; now we had our second clash of the tournament with the English, and Hrubesch let Al Pacino do the talking.

  He showed the speech that Pacino, the Hollywood star of the cult film Any Given Sunday, playing coach Tony d’Amato, gives to his faltering American football team, the Miami Sharks. Most of us knew it, of course, from the cinema in 1999. But we all watched, mesmerised, as Al Pacino knocked it into his players: ‘Three minutes till the biggest battle of our professional lives. It all comes down to today. And either we heal, as a team, or we’re gonna crumble.’ Al Pacino fires up his team with clever, well thought-out words. Every one hits the spot; his message is striking. ‘In any fight it’s the guy who’s willing to die who’s gonna win that inch,’ he blares out to his players. Then he lowers his voice and says, ‘You’ve got to look at the guy next to you. Look into his eyes . . . You’re gonna see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team, because he knows when it comes down to it you’re gonna do the same for him. That’s a team, gentlemen, and either we heal, now, as a team, or we will die as individuals . . . Now, what are you gonna do?’

  At the end of the clip we all looked at each other. And I saw such determination flash in the eyes of my teammates that it was almost scary. Everybody radiated an unswerving confidence that we could roll over this England team. We shouted at the tops of our voices, slapped hands so hard that it hurt. This video had welded us so firmly together that we beat England 4–0. I set up the first for Gonzalo Castro, scored the second myself, and effected the pass to Sandro Wagner, who made it 3–0. All thanks to Hrubesch’s idea of relying on Al Pacino.

  In 2010, just prior to the World Cup in South Africa, Joachim Löw hired a very special person to give us a motivational talk during our preparations in Sicily. Jonah Lomu, the New Zealand rugby legend, told us his life story. Normally I’m quite sceptical about this sort of approach, because unfortunately lots of speakers often just talk in platitudes. But what Lomu had achieved in his life was really so impressive that I hung onto his every word and I’ll never forget the challenges he defied.

  The son of Tongan immigrants, Lomu grew up in a humble household in a notorious suburb of Auckland. His father drank and sometimes beat him. Lomu went out on the street, joined gangs and was on the verge of slipping into criminality, but when one of his friends was stabbed to death he made the break and decided to direct all his energies into rugby.

  Lomu trained as hard as he could until he was chosen for the New Zealand national side, the All Blacks. At the 1995 World Cup in South Africa he took the international stage by storm, although the previous year doctors had identified that he had a rare kidney complaint. Because of his condition Lomu had to take a year out from the game in 1996. But he came back so strongly that he was the outstanding player of the 1999 World Cup too.

  His courageous and aggressive playing style brought him worldwide respect. He was described as ‘the turbo-charged bulldozer’, ‘rhino’, ‘the unstoppable’, ‘a force of nature’ and ‘the black bus’. Weighing 120 kilos, he was able to run 100 metres in 10.8 seconds. ‘As soon as I put on the All Blacks shirt I feel like Superman,’ said Lomu, who with his stature reminded me somehow of the comic figure Obelix – because he was so strong and yet was such a kind-hearted soul.

  He outran his opponents by the dozen. Anybody who got in his way was flattened. But his illness managed to do what no opponent could. It brought him to his knees. He had to undergo dialysis. Then he needed an operation. ‘I was this guy who just ran right over opponents, won games and had fun. But all of a sudden I was so ill that I couldn’t even run past a baby.’

  The power man had to learn everything from scratch again. ‘How do I take a step? How do I lift my foot? How do I walk?’ He forced himself agonisingly out of his wheelchair, honed his muscles again and lived life with zest once more – until in 2015 he very sadly died at the tender age of 40. Five years earlier, before his visit to our training camp, he was still brimming with energy. ‘Nothing can crush you,’ he said. ‘Just as nothing could crush me. If you fall, stand up again. You can achieve great things.’

  I still think about Jonah Lomu today. About his positive attitude to life, even though he had every reason to complain and rail against his fate. Rather than do that he always looked forward in good spirits.

  The last dressing-room talks that have lingered in my memory are those from the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Before each game Jogi Löw got a different player to talk to the team. On one occasion it was Philipp Lahm, on another Roman Weidenfeller. Each one had the chance to express his expectations and view of things, while also opting for his own type of talk. Before the semi-final against the hosts, Brazil, Jogi Löw spoke himself, saying, ‘When we go out there now almost everyone will be against us. Which makes it all the more important to stand together on the pitch. To do everything together. All of you on the pitch. All the backroom staff too. We’re going to fight together. When someone makes a good play, all of us are going to applaud. If someone makes a mistake, we’re going to pick him up. We’re going to fight until we’re in the final in Rio. We’re going to play like champions!’

  I don’t believe there’s a winning formula for dressing-room talks. They just have to suit the situation. And if it’s necessary to have a go at somebody in the dressing room, that can help too if – like me – he learns his lesson from it.

  To come back to Mourinho again, his big plus was that he was always honest with his players. He always told us what he thought. He never talked about people behind their backs. He was hard, but fair. Mourinho is a thoroughly honest man. That’s his strength. He can praise, but he can criticise too. I know managers who have a problem with criticism. Who don’t dare criticise their own players. Who pretend to be the strong man to the press, but who are really afraid of challenging great players. Who instead make their assistant manager dish out the criticism. But not Mourinho. And it was precisely that which always went down well. ‘I’m never going to tell you you’re doing something well if it’s untrue,’ he emphasised to us. I’m absolutely sure that you’d never hear a bad word about Mourinho from any player during that time in Madrid. I’ll even guarantee that not a single player had a problem with him. Because he was always decent. Because he was direct and honest. And because it was this approach that allowed many players to take the decisive step forwards. Like me.

  Sergio Ramos

  ‘Thanks for everything, Bro!’

  Sergio Ramos is a Real Madrid institution and one of the most successful footballers ever. He’s been playing for Los Blancos since 2005. He’s won the Champions League with them twice. In the 2014 final he scored the equaliser in injury time against Atlético Madrid, allowing Real to go into extra time, in which they won 4–1. He has won the World Cup with the Spanish national side and the European Championship twice. Ramos looked after Mesut Özil from the day of his arrival at Real and became a very good friend.

  When I think about Mesut Özil the footballer I think about magic, talent, quality and the ability to read a game like few others.

  When I think about Mesut Özil the person I think about friendship, sensitivity, fondness, respect, joy and warmth.

  The truth is that I already knew Mesut the player before he came to Real Madrid. I though he was a different sort of player, with a golden left foot and splendid ball control.

  We started to hear his name being talked about and we knew that he could be a great signing for Real Madrid. After so many years at the club, it’s my duty to any new teammate that arrives to help them adapt as quickly as possible: help them get to know the city better, the places to live, etc. And I did that with him, but in the case of Mesut it was special. It’s really interesting.

  Obviously, language could have been a barrier, because he didn’t speak Spa
nish, but we got chatting straight away. His level of English was similar to mine and it was an opportunity for us to practise the language. We became good friends from the start. He happened to move into the house next door to mine and I invited him over to try to help him settle in and spend some time together.

  We didn’t just share our profession and club, but we also liked the same things. We have similar tastes in fashion and music. It was something that brought us together straight away. He always asked me about where to buy clothes and the type of music I played as we both liked R’n’B and hip hop and that’s how we became friends. There was a special understanding right away.

  And because of that special friendship we had, in one League game I wore his shirt under mine. It was simply an act of fondness and friendship. Mesut is a very sensitive person with enormous quality and potential and I had the idea of putting on his shirt to remember him if I scored a goal.

  Before leaving, he gave me the last shirt he wore for Real Madrid as a gift, with a personal dedication. It is a special souvenir that has a special place in my museum.

  In sporting terms we follow each other closely. As it happened, I was lucky enough to win the World Cup with Spain in South Africa in 2010 and he won it in Brazil in 2014 with Germany. I remember congratulating him on becoming world champion, which is one of the most important achievements for any footballer, and I was really pleased with the fact that he could feel the same way I’d felt four years earlier.

  We’re still in touch today. We talk about our families, our teams, our cities. During his time here in Madrid he was very happy and still has special memories of the club, the city and the fans and that’s why he still follows us closely. Mesut, you’re unique.

  Thanks for everything, bro!

  13

  Galactic duels

  Follow your instinct

  Mourinho’s dressing-room talks are just brilliant. Partly because they’re so honest. Mourinho will criticise Cristiano Ronaldo just as readily as he will Sergio Ramos or Iker Casillas. He doesn’t have favourites who get special treatment from him. He’s not afraid of any player and thus doesn’t adopt a softly-softly approach towards anyone. Mourinho always saw us as a team, in which everybody was equally important and treated the same.

  After his talks we were prepared to bend over backwards for him and the club. Let’s take the example of Barcelona. The entire squad was passionate about beating this superb team. Not just in our head-to-head encounters, but on every other match day as part of the wider duel.

  I don’t think many people are aware of just how miles ahead Barcelona were of Madrid before Mourinho arrived. Before he was signed to Madrid, Barça was a footballing superpower in both Spain and Europe. It was the best Barcelona side of all time. The Catalans outshone everyone else; they put every other club in the shade. No matter how well a team played, it was never enough against Barcelona. They had an answer to everything. And they drove Real Madrid, in particular, to despair.

  In the 2008–09 season Real suffered one of the greatest humiliations of all time at the hands of Barcelona. After the team, led by the then trainer, Juan de Ramos, had been enjoying a strong second half of the season, winning 52 out of a possible 54 points, most football fans were expecting an evenly matched Clásico, the fifth last game of the season. But instead of keeping pace with Barcelona, Madrid were given an object lesson in football and lost 6–2 in the Bernabéu stadium, even though Real had initially taken the lead. ‘This is one of the happiest days of my life, and I know that we’ve made lots of other people happy too,’ said Barça coach Pep Guardiola at the press conference following this exhibition of perfect football.

  When his team landed at Barcelona airport the following morning they were greeted by throngs of people as if they’d just won the Champions League and had the trophy in their luggage.

  All confidence at Madrid was extinguished for the weeks and months that followed. Their arch-rivals Barcelona took the league title and also won the Copa del Rey. The Barça players were the non plus ultra of Spanish football.

  And not only in Spain. In the Champions League final they were up against Manchester United, who were full of confidence because the English side had just won the Premier League title for the eleventh time. In spite of this, two days before the final, Pep Guardiola took his leading midfielder, Xavi, aside and told him, ‘I know exactly how we’re going to win in Rome. I’ve worked it out. I can see it. We’re going to score two or three goals, just wait and see.’

  At the press conference, too, Guardiola radiated confidence. ‘I know for certain that no team is better than us when it comes to ball possession or courage. We’re going to try to instil in them that fear you feel when you’re permanently under attack.’ To begin with there were no signs of Guardiola’s promise. Instead of continually attacking, as vowed, Barça allowed themselves to be pushed back, drastically so, and were lucky to survive the opening minutes without conceding a goal. They won in the end, however – not exactly as Guardiola had predicted, but still 2–0 thanks to goals from Lionel Messi and Samuel Eto’o.

  Because the Catalans then went on to win the Spanish Super Cup, and the UEFA Super Cup as well as the FIFA Club World Cup, they bagged an unbelievable six trophies in 2009 – that is to say, the club won every competition it had entered.

  To make it perfectly clear, at the time Barcelona and Real Madrid were as far apart from a footballing perspective as the moon and the earth. Or, to use another analogy, Barcelona was like a Mercedes-AMG GT S, with all the cogs working in perfect unison to propel its 510-horsepower engine. With a brilliant driver who could effortlessly manoeuvre the vehicle at high speed down every road. Staying with that image, all that shone at Madrid before Mourinho was the bodywork. At the time Real was like a Ferrari, but with a battered old, maggot-eaten engine under the bonnet rather than a 963cv, and also filled with the wrong petrol.

  These were the circumstances in which Madrid found itself when Mourinho, Sami Khedira and I arrived at the club. And it is against this background that our achievements over the next three years must be judged.

  We made a strong start to our first season. We won 10 of our opening 12 games, drawing the other two. I managed three goals and six assists. Our performance in the Champions League was excellent too. We won four of the first five games and drew the fifth against AC Milan. My personal record: four assists and one goal.

  Then it was time for my first Clásico (a term used exclusively to describe matches between Barcelona and Madrid). I had no idea what was awaiting me. I was prepared for it to be a special game. A derby. A bit like Bremen against Hamburg. Or Schalke against Dortmund. But then the match just steamrollered me, knocked me flat. The Clásico is bigger than anything you can imagine. No other football match in the world has the hype that surrounds this fixture. The Clásico is on its own terms. It is bigger than big. It sets star players on edge. It doesn’t just create mayhem in Spain; it has almost the entire world in its thrall. You go by coach to the stadium, at least for home games. Thousands of people accompany you en route, running behind. The coach can only creep along, barely moving forwards due to the masses of people. They let off fireworks. They sing. They jog the coach. And just before it turns into the stadium the people go ballistic. Now they give the coach a thorough shake and hammer their fists on it from the outside. It’s louder than a gig. More colourful than Carnival. The hysteria continues into the game. With every skilful play the crowd goes wild. When you step up to take a corner you feel as if 10,000 people are bellowing right into your ear.

  This wasn’t just my first Clásico; it was also the first duel between Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho as managers of Barça and Real respectively. When Mourinho moved from Italy to Spain, Guardiola said, in one of his first press conferences after the summer break, ‘Mourinho is going to make me a better coach. It’s important to have him working in Spain because he’s one of the best managers in the world. He’ll make all of us better.’ In the end Mourinho draine
d him of energy and was perhaps part of the reason why Guardiola left Barça.

  I can still see the game being played out before my eyes. We travel to the Camp Nou as league leaders, with 32 points, one more than Barcelona. The media are expecting the closest Clásico of all time, because only a few months previously Mourinho managed to defeat Barcelona with Inter Milan.

  The game is being played on a Monday, which is unusual. Elections had been taking place in Catalonia, which was why the match had to be rescheduled.

  I’m in the starting line-up, between Cristiano Ronaldo, Ángel di María and Karim Benzema. Xavi scores for the hosts in the ninth minute. Soon afterwards Pedro makes it 2–0. Then David Villa scores twice in two minutes. 4–0 to Barcelona. Jeffrén slots in the final one shortly before the end. In the meantime, Ronaldo gets into an altercation with Pep Guardiola. The Barça coach prevents Ronaldo from taking a quick throw-in, dropping the ball at his feet rather than handing it to him. The Portuguese player shoves Guardiola and there’s a brief scuffle, which Andrés Iniesta and Víctor Valdés get involved in too. In stoppage time Sergio Ramos is also sent off after fouling Messi. On the way back to the dressing room he starts an argument with Carles Puyol and Xavi.

  For me the drama is over after 45 minutes when we’re 2–0 down. Never before has a side coached by Mourinho suffered such a heavy loss. ‘This is a defeat that’s difficult to swallow. It’s not the kind of defeat where you actually deserved to win or kept hitting the woodwork,’ Mourinho says afterwards. ‘One team played to the limits of its potential, the other one played really poorly. We have to look at it positively. If, as a team, you win major titles, you’ve got every right to cry for joy. If you lose as we did today, you’ve got no right to cry; you have to get back to work. If I had the choice I’d like to play again straight away.’

  I recall Xavi saying, ‘They never got to the ball. We put them to sleep.’ Barcelona’s goalie, Víctor Valdés, was almost bursting with pride: ‘I got dizzy following the ball. In the end I decided not to watch too closely. In any case our boys had the ball.’ Guardiola was convinced afterwards that this game would ‘stay in the memory and take its place in football history, not just because of the scoreline, but because of the manner in which we won. It’s not easy to play that well against such a strong team – against a team that dispatches its opponents both in Spain and abroad. We must be proud of our performance. It’s a victory with worldwide significance, because we’ve done it in our own particular way. No other club in the world trusts its players as much as we do.’