Now, Andy Van der Meyde’s autobiography has been released. The Dutchman joined Inter from Ajax in 2003 and left the club in 2005 after playing 54 games and scoring four goals. In the book he talks frankly about a career that went downhill, women, strippers, booze, white powder and crazy road races with Ibrahimovic and Mido. He also talks about denied children, diseases and lots of money.
“My father was an alcoholic and addicted to gambling. I ended all contact with him, so when I came to Ajax’s youth academy, I was asked to play with my mother’s last name. I said no. Ajax is the only team where I had fun. Along with Ibrahimovic and Mido: we competed in wacky night races on the A10 around Amsterdam. Zlatan had a Mercedes SL AMG, Mido alternated between a Ferrari and a BMW Z8. Tomas Galasek, instead, was the one who made me start smoking cigarettes.”
Then came Inter: “One day the bid from Inter at 8 million. I left, even though coach Ronald Koeman said I was not yet ready for abroad. After a week in Milan I called David Endt (team manager at Ajax ed.) and asked him to bring me home again. They can keep the money, I told him. Homesickness ate me up.”
Going from Ajax to Inter is like “leaving a country store for a multinational company. Everything is very professional, a crazy circulation of money, a president who, after every win gives each player 50,000 euros. The goal at Highbury against Arsenal was my best moments at Inter. I had a zoo in the garden: horses, dogs, zebras, parrots, turtles. Dyana, my first wife, was the real disease. For her sake, I refused a move to Monaco. ‘In Monte Carlo there are only apartments,’ she said, ‘where do we put our animals?’ One night in the garage, in the dark, I saw something big and heard strange noises. She had bought a camel.”
Then he ended up in the Premier League in 2005: “Everton offered me a salary of 37,000 euros a week, more than twice as much as I had at Inter. So I started out.”
Source: fcinternews.it
