Moratti, He was too generous, and kind. He could give us big bonuses after one single win, and I reacted on that. Not that I have anything against bonuses. Who does? But these bonuses weren’t given after a league- or cup victory. It was after single games, a game that maybe wasn’t even important. It gave the wrong signals,according to me, and sure, as a player you don’t step up to Moratti just like that. Moratti is from a nice finance family. He’s power. He’s money. But I had been given such a position in the club that I did it anyway. Moratti is not a difficult person. He’s easy to talk to, and I said to him:
“You!”
“Yes, Ibra?”
“You have to take it easy.”
“In what way?
“With the bonuses. The guys can become satisfied. Damn, one win, that’s nothing. We get paid to win
and absolutely, if we get the Scudetto, give us something nice if you want to, but not after one single win!”
He got it.


The thing with the bonuses was just a little thing. The real challenge was the alignments. That bothered me from day one !

I’d seen it so clear in football, both in Juventus and in Ajax: every team performs better when the players stick together.

In Inter it was the other way around. Over there the Brazilians sat in a corner. The Argentineans in another, and
then the rest of us in the middle. It was so shallow, so flaccid.

Alright, sure alignments happen in the clubs. It’s not good but it happens. But then at least people chose their friends, and go after the people they get along with. Here they went after nationality. It was so primitive. They played football together. But then they lived in different worlds, and that made me furious and I got it right away, this needs to change. Or else we won’t win the league.

Some maybe said: What does it matter who we eat lunch with? Believe me, it mattered. If you don’t stick together outside the pitch you’ll notice it in the game.It affects the motivation and team spirit. In football there’s a small margin and stuff like that can be decisive, and I saw it as my first big test to end all that.

But I noticed, talking wasn’t enough. I walked around and said: What is this silliness? Why do you sit there in groups like little children? And absolutely, many agreed with me. Others got a little embarrassed, but nothing happened. The habits were strong. Those invisible barriers were to sharp.

That’s why I went to Moratti again, and this time I was as clear as I could. Inter hadn’t won the league in ages. Would it continue like this? Would we be losers just because people didn’t talk to each other?
“Of course not”, Moratti said.
“Then we have to break these alignments. We can’t win the league if we don’t function as a team.”

I don’t think that Moratti knew how bad it was, but he understood my reasoning. It was a part of his philosophy, he said. “We must be like a big family in Inter. I will talk to them”, and not much later he came down to the guys,
and you could tell right away what kind of respect the guys had for him.

Moratti was the club. He didn’t just say how things were. He owned us as well. He held a little speech. He was burning and talked about staying together and everyone looked at me of course. It sounded like my words. Is it Ibra who has talked? Most of them were probably assured of that. I didn’t care. I just wanted the team to stick together and the atmosphere also became better, step by step.

The alignments were broken and everyone started to hang out with each other.