“What do you actually want from me?” I snap back at him. Then, more softly, I say to Ramos, “He’s making me mad. He ought to shit his trap. He’s never content.”
“I want you to play as well as you can,” Mourinho yells. “I want you to go into tackles like a man. Do you know what it looks like when you tackle? No? Let me show you.”
Mourinho stands on tiptoes, thrusts his arms down by his sides, purses his lips and minces around the dressing room. “That’s how you tackle. Ooh, I mustn’t get hurt. And absolutely mustn’t get dirty,” he shouts while repeating his Oezil tackle parody.
He gets more and more fixated. His heart rate is probably 180. Mine’s 200 for sure. Then I’ve really had enough. I can’t hold back any longer. My southern temperament is overwhelming me. “If you’re so great, why don’t you get out there and play yourself?” I scream now, ripping off my jersey and hurling it at his feet. “Here. Put it on. Off you go.”
Mourinho just laughs spitefully. “Oh, are you giving up now?” he asks. “What a coward,” he says harshly, moving to within just a few centimetres of me. “What do you want? To crawl under a nice, warm shower? Shampoo your hair? Be on your own? Or do you want to show your teammates, the fans out there, and me what you’re capable of?”
Now Mourinho’s talking very calmly. He’s no longer hot-tempered and loud, but controlled, which makes me even madder. How can he compose himself like that while I’m on the verge of losing it? Im so pissed off. I’d love to chuck my boots at his head. I want him to stop. To leave me in peace finally.
“Do you know what, Mesut?” Mourinho says, louder now so that everyone can hear. “Cry if you like! Sob away! You’re such a baby. Go and take a shower. We don’t need you.”
Slowly I get up, slip out of my boots, grab my towel, and walk silently past the manager to the showers, without dignifying him with so much as a glance. Instead he lobs one final provocation in my direction. “You’re not Zinedine Zidane, you know. No! Never! You’re not even in the same league!”
I feel my throat constricting. Those last words of his are like a stab to the heart. Mourinho knows exactly what he’s saying. He knows how much I admire that player. He knows the Frenchman is the only footballer I truly look up to.
“You’re not Zidane!” Mourinho’s words resound in my head for long afterwards. I’m now on my own in the dressing room. The team is back on the pitch. Kaka has been brought on for me. I don’t find this out till later, but Sergio Ramos has nabbed my jersey and put it underneath his. The black digits of my number 10 shimmer beneath his own shirt.
Pepe and Ronaldo both score in the second half to make it 5-1 against Deportivo, while I stand in the shower, lost in thought. I’ve never been bollocked like that by a coach before. I’ve never been so shaken in my conviction about what’s right and wrong. What has happened here? Why did Mourinho, this great manager, make me look such a fool? What was he trying to tell me?
That evening, on 30 September 2012, just before 9 p.m., I started posing myself major questions like I’d never done before. The argument was on my mind for weeks. Who was I? And where did I want to go? To answer these questions I began to look back on my life.
