“I WAS IN A TRANCE IN ISTANBUL. I WAS TELLING MYSELF, ‘YOU’VE WAITED FOR THIS MOMENT YOUR WHOLE LIFE – DON’T F ** K IT UP’”
Arsene Wenger called me, and he was furious. He was nearly yelling. I’d joined Liverpool, not Arsenal. After five years with Feyenoord, I was ready for a fresh challenge. That summer, I’d spent a couple of days in London and Wenger showed me Highbury and the training ground. It was a beautiful visit – we agreed terms and shook hands. I went back to Rotterdam, then Wenger phoned me. ‘I’m really sorry,’ he said. ‘Feyenoord want £10 million and we don’t pay that amount of money, not even for a striker’. The deal was off, and I was angry. Then three matches into the new season, Liverpool came in and I moved to Anfield – for £5.75m. ‘What the hell is going on?’ Wenger asked me when he called. ‘I offered £7.5m and Feyenoord said no!’ I said, ‘I’m sorry – I had nothing to do with it’. Joining Liverpool was meant to be.
A few weeks after I signed, my mum brought me a Liverpool scarf. For 10 years, it had hung on the wall above my bed in my old apartment. I’d travelled to an international tournament in Germany when I was 16, and stayed with a local family. They had the scarf and I really liked it, so they gave it to me. It was a precious gift, and I put it on my wall so I could look at it when I woke up every morning.
Liverpool were one of the most respected teams in Poland – they’d had a great battle against Widzew Lodz in the 1982-83 European Cup quarter-finals, and I remember watching them in the
