You Really Need to Get a Job, Tijjani

“What were you doing at 19?”

For me, that’s a funny question. 

When I look at the City dressing room, I almost have to laugh. Phil was a star at that age. Erling was killing it in the Bundesliga. And me? The guy with the mustache and the funny name? 

I had a contract with Aldi. 

ALDI Grocery Stores. 

“Quality food. Everyday Low Prices.”

At 19, that was my job. Every day after school, I’d bike to the store in the centre of Zwolle, my hometown. For the next four hours, I was a cashier. I was carrying jarred pickles from the storage room to the shelves. I didn’t really want to do it, but I was living with my parents, and one day, when I was lying on the couch in sweatpants watching the Premier League, my mom looked at me and said, “Tijjani, you really need to get a job. You’re an adult now. Maybe you could deliver newspapers?”

I said, “Don’t worry, I’m sure something will turn up.”

But then she saw an application form at Aldi and filled it out. She even made me hand it to the store manager, and when we talked, I did my best to not get the job. They must have been really desperate though, because the next day he called me.

“You start tomorrow.”

Damn.

My football dream felt so far away. I had signed for PEC Zwolle, the best team in the city, but for the first three games, I was on the bench. For the U19 team.

I thought I was training well. I asked my dad, “Why??” 

He used to play professionally, and then he ran a football academy. He came to my next training, and afterwards we got the lineup for the next game. I was not even in the squad. 

I told my dad, “See?? How is it possible???”

Like any Dutch football dad, he gave me the raw truth. He said, “I wouldn’t pick you either. If you keep training like this, you can play for my team in the fourth division.”

I had to go straight to school, and as I was riding my bike, I started to cry. I cried so much that I could barely see where I was going. I pulled my hoodie up over my head and looked into the ground. All I could think was, It’s over.

Later that day, we were having dinner, and my dad cleared his throat. Oh boy, here we go…… He began talking about Iniesta, and how even the most talented players run a lot without the ball. “You have the talent, but you need to work harder.” I looked at my mother. She’s from Indonesia, and she is the good cop in the family, the most loving, adoring mother you can imagine. I was hoping that she would defend me, like she always did when my dad was being too harsh.

I’ll never forget her words. 

She looked me in the eyes and said, “Tijjani …….. he’s right.”

I just stared at my plate. My dream was officially over.

The next day, I was back at Aldi, scanning groceries. 

BEEP ….…. BEEP ….…. BEEP ….….

“Would you like a receipt?”

---

---

I thought I knew what I wanted. 

Top three club in Holland, then a big club in Europe, and the national team. Even though I was just a normal kid from a normal family. Well, kind of normal…….. 

When my dad played back in the ’90s, most Dutch clubs didn’t have much money, so after he retired, he opened a video rental store. My brother and I would be there, watching movies and eating candy out of the vending machine. Of course, there was the 18+ section. One day my brother and I finally had a look, and Dad caught us. “Hey! What are you doing over there?” Hahhahaha. We were like, “What is this? It’s a different world!” 

When the store shut down, Dad started selling tactics boards to coaches, which was a big success. He was also coaching us at PEC, and when my brother was about 10 and I was about 12, Twente signed us both. 

The training ground was an hour away, so the club would send this massive taxi to our house every morning at 6 a.m. We’d grab our juice boxes and the sandwiches that our mother had prepared (nothing says “I love you” like a spread of Nutella), and then the van would pick up our cousin and a few more teammates. Poor driver!! Sometimes we’d play UNO in the back, but usually we were fighting and arguing. 

“Man, Barça were so good last night …….. this Pep guy seems okay ……. How can you even say that Ronaldo is better than Messi???”

This was when the BlackBerry was popping, so we’d be playing music off our phones and messaging one another, feeling like CEOs. 

PING! PING! PING! PING! 

One day, the driver snapped. 

He looked at me and screamed, “YOU, to the front. I’m fed up.”

He guarded me like a prisoner all the way to Enschede. The next day, the whole scene would repeat. I really hope they paid him well. 

Unfortunately, we were always the first to get on and the last to jump off, so we’d get home at 19:30. Dinner in the microwave, an hour of TV, and then bed. Six days a week. After four years, we were dead.

PEC Zwolle wanted us back, but they couldn’t afford to pay training compensation to Twente. Our dad had started to coach an amateur team, and he suggested that we play games for him and train with Zwolle for a year, and then we could join Zwolle for free. This is how I ended up in the Dutch fourth division at 16. 

It was one of the best years I ever had.

We’d play on these muddy pitches in the middle of nowhere, cows grazing behind the goals, tractors shovelling horse s**t. I was tiny, and I’d fight against the kind of players you find in the lower leagues, like the defender who is built like a fridge and who will kick you halfway to the hospital if you even attempt a stepover. It was actually a dangerous place for me, because I was a bit of a show pony. After six months, my brother joined the team, and we had this game where I was totally useless. I messed up a nutmeg, and my brother screamed to my father, “DO SOMETHING ABOUT HIM!!!!”

My dad held out his arms and shouted, “Yeah, I tried. What can I do?”

My mother was also there, and she covered her face with her hands, all like, “Good God, this family….”

To me, it was just football.

After the games, we would all get together for drinks. In Holland we call this the third half. The big guys would be popping their beers, and my brother and I would have our soda and fries. One day I remember telling the guys, “So my plan is the Eredivisie first, then a top club in England or Spain…. ”

Everyone was looking at me, waiting for the punchline.

I said, “What? That’s it.”

And then I took another bite of my cheeseburger.

When the guys went out partying, I’d ask my dad if I could join (a hard no), and then I’d ping three of my best friends on the BlackBerry. 

“fifa night?”

“YES!!!!”

“im in”

“where when????”

Chips, candy and chocolate. Me, Mark, Steyn and Bas. 2 v 2. Three attempts to choose a team at random, square square square. Suddenly it was 5 a.m. “Oh, we have to sleep!!”

Without that year, I think I would have lost my love for football.

Looking back at it, maybe I relaxed too much, because when we went back to PEC Zwolle, that was when I didn’t play any of the first three matches. When even your own mom can’t defend you at the dinner table, you can no longer fool yourself. So I started training twice as hard. Gym sessions, morning runs, extra practice ….. it was like the Rocky Balboa montage. 

The next summer, I got home from a holiday with some friends near Barcelona (adios, Aldi money), and the first-team coach called. “Tomorrow, you train with us.”

But there still was no contract. And then AZ offered me a deal, a total no-brainer. I was invited to one of their games to sign the contract, but I had a shift at Aldi, and I couldn’t get anyone to cover for me. I called my boss going, “Sorry, I quit. Got another job.”

He said, “Where??” 

He probably thought I’d signed for Lidl or something. 

I said, “AZ Alkmaar.”

My first pro deal. I had to pinch myself.

My mother was very emotional. My dad simply said, “I knew you could do this. If you never had the talent, I would have been a lot softer on you.” 

But then for two years, I was stuck in the AZ second team. It was difficult, because you’re 21 years old, seeing guys your age get called up to the national team, and you wonder if it’s ever going to happen for you. You can only be a “talent” for so long. My girlfriend at the time, Marina, who is now my wife, she told me to wait for my chance, and I waited and waited and ………… nothing. Like, nothing. 

Midway through my third year, I went on loan to RKC, at the bottom of the Eredivisie. Those six months gave me a reboot. The next season, I got a few chances at the senior team as a sub, but I never did anything special. 

Games: 22

Goals: 0

One day my dad sat me down and said, “Listen, there are a lot of grey mice in football. You don’t want to be one of them.” He wanted me to take more risks with the ball. 

We made a bet. 

For each shot on target, I got 50 euros. 

For each game with no shots on target, he got 50 euros. 

I scored six goals the next season. Two of them were in the final playoff game for a spot in the Conference League, one of the best matches I’ve ever played. Our family went out for a big dinner in Amsterdam, and when the bill came, we all looked at Dad. 

“Yes, I’ll get it….. ”

Deep down, I know he’s never been happier picking up the tab.

The next year, we qualified for the Conference League, and I celebrated by taking my wife to Zanzibar. I remember walking out on the hotel balcony and seeing the beach and the clear water. It was like an episode of The White Lotus. Then I checked my phone and saw a text from my dad. 

“Call me.”

He said AC Milan wanted to talk to me. 

I should have been out snorkeling, but I was sitting in the room with the curtains closed, watching clips on YouTube and reading up on Milan’s history. Then I got an email about a call with Mr. Pioli and the director, Geoffrey Moncada. You know how it pops up in your calendar?

Invitation: Milan x Tijjani chat @ Saturday 19:00, 24 June 

Uh-oh.

The day of my wife’s birthday. 

We had planned a safari, and the guides had promised to prepare a nice dinner for us. I tried to make time for both my wife and Milan, but soon we were in a tent on the savannah, waiting forever for the food to be ready, and the clock was ticking. I was afraid I’d miss my call. Finally, they said, “Okay, you guys can come.” We were eating by the campfire, and I asked why it had taken so long. One of the guides said, “Ah yes, there were two buffaloes by your table.”

Oh. Fair enough.

The guides had already been very clear. If you see a buffalo, stand still. Don’t run. I mean, look at this beast!!

So we’re having the barbecue dinner, everything is great, and then my phone flashes up. Pioli and Moncada are calling me on FaceTime. We’re still by the campfire. My phone battery is at 10%.

I press mute and ask my wife, “Can you get the powerbank in the tent?”

She comes back with the charger. 

“No, no, the powerbank!”

I check the battery. 

6%

I didn’t have time to put up one of those background wallpapers, so I’m talking about how exciting the midfield is looking, and behind me Pioli and Moncada are seeing trees swaying and wild animals moving on the horizon. The guides are listening in, going, “Wait, he’s going to AC Milan? Who is this guy?” 

Finally my wife comes back with the powerbank, the call goes really well, and I turn around to the guides: “Looks like I’m going to Italy.”

They’re like, “No way!!! Can we come to a match?”

But now we have to get back to the tent, and it’s completely dark. It’s quiet. One of the guides walks ahead of us. 

He stops. 

The bushes are bustling. 

He turns to us. "Shhhhhhhhhh.”

“What is it?”

“Male buffalo. Alone.”

“Oh, let me check.”

I turn on the flashlight. 

Ten metres ahead, a buffalo is staring at me like:

😠

I scream to Marina, “RUUNNNNNN!!!!!!” Our tent is very close, so we sprint through the bushes, and I swear, you can include every single game I have ever played in my life ….. I have never run so fast. 

Thank God, we made it safely back to the tent, and I could tell my parents the good news. 

One, I was going to Milan. 

Two, I was still alive.

At the airport in Milan, we were told that my family had to get another car, because the crowd was too big for all of us to get through. I honestly thought it was a joke, but when we got to the arrivals lounge…… 

Yeah. This was going to be different, and it was. The fans, the tifos, the flares and the smoke, the free meals in restaurants…. Just incredible. When I see a drone shot of a packed San Siro on a Sunday night, city skyline in the distance, I still get goosebumps. I’m honoured to have played there. I remember one game we were leading by a lot, and I was walking around out there, humming along with the fans. 

“È un’emozione .... Che cresce piano piano….”

That song just stays in your head.

Early on, there was actually a moment when I was in bed doing the medical, and I had this thought…….. Is this move too big for me?

Sometimes, it’s like your own brain is trying to mess it up for you. But then I thought about all the hours in the gym, and the late nights at Aldi, and I went, Nah, this is what you always wanted. And it was. 

“Big club in Europe…. ”

Check.

“National team …”

In September, I was called up for the first time. Greece in the Euro qualifiers. When Koeman put me on in the second half, my mind went back to this movie called In Orange. It’s about a little Dutch boy who dreams of playing for the Netherlands, and I watched it so many times as a kid. And now, I was him. 

Another dream come true. 

That season, I really felt like I had everything I could ever want. I was a national team player, I got so much love from the fans, we were fighting for the Scudetto, and then, just as I thought life could not get any better……… 

Poof.

I became a father. 

They had to do a C-section at the hospital, and after a lot of hard work (from Marina, not me), Xavién emerged into this world. I cried. I was so proud. He immediately became the centre of my universe. I think that’s why I played even better in my second season at Milan. I wasn’t just playing for me, but for him. 

It’s crazy … literally two minutes after Xavién was born, a nurse came over to me. I thought she was going to tell me something about how to take care of him, but she said, “Hey, uhm … later on, can I get a picture?”

The doctor actually got really mad at her, but the entire hospital staff was full of Rossoneri fans. The next few days, while Marina stayed there to recover, the cleaning staff came by her room every two hours to check if I was there. That floor was so clean, you could have eaten a risotto off it. 

Then as we were about to leave, the doctor said, “Sorry, I just wanted to ask you to sign some shirts, but I get them tomorrow. Could you stay one more day?”

One more day in the hospital? With a newborn son? So that a doctor could get some shirts signed?

Only in Milan.

Unfortunately, in my second season, our performances were not worthy of a club like Milan. I wanted to win more than just the Supercoppa, because the fans deserved a big title, but when my dad said that City were interested, Marina told me, “You have to go.”

I didn’t speak to Pep until the day I signed. Just Hugo Viana and Nathan Aké, who was on me all summer. “Is it done yet? Have you signed??” 

He was hyping up the club and the staff, and he was right. The first few months, I decided to just look at the other midfielders, listen to Pep and learn. Pep is crazy, in the best way. We could work on our high press in training, and then he’d realise that it’s not working, and you could see him thinking and thinking and thinking. Thinking so hard that smoke is rising from his head. And then…. 

“Guys! Guys! Let’s change how we do it on the right side.”

One little tweak. 

Click.

Now it worked. 

The player who surprised me the most is actually Erling. I knew he was good, but when you see him every day in training, you realise why. You see it in the gym. You see it in the dining hall. You see the recovery bike, the stretching routines, the ice baths. His discipline is unreal. It’s like he’s programmed to optimise every minute of his day for scoring goals. You see him be great, and you want to be great, too. 

Nobody goes, “Nah, let’s take it easy today.” Everything is 100%. 

And if it’s not, Pep would start moving his hands.

I have to give a huge thank you to the City fans. I feel like a part of the family here, and even though we did not win the league, it’s been amazing to lift two trophies in my first season. I’ve been able to chip in with a few goals, too. When we played Tottenham in my second game, that’s when I really felt what the Premier League is about. Long throws, set pieces, up and down, boom boom boom. You have zero time, and it’s so intense, but I think my son has helped me deal with it all. 

Xavién turned two last February. A few years ago, I would think about a bad game for days, but now I come home for dinner, and as I walk through the door, he scoops the tomato sauce out of his bowl and throws it onto the carpet. 

And I go, “Look how well he uses his hands!”

(He can do nothing wrong, and I think he knows it.)

Thanks to him, I even had to change up my celebration. I used to just do the shrug. 

¯\(ツ)/¯ 

C’est la vie. 

After he was born, I held my arms up like an X. He saw it on TV and did the X, too, only downwards, the other way around. When I scored against West Ham, I was the one copying him.

Being a dad is the best job in the world. I used to go to bed hearing the scanning sound from Aldi, but now I only hear his voice. 

“Papa go.”

Marina will show him clips of me, and when I start running with the ball, he smiles and claps. “Papa go! Papa go go go!”

If I’m tackled to the ground, his head drops. 

He looks up at Marina. 

“Papa pain.”

I live for him. Every time I drive home from a game, I know that I’ll have my biggest fan right there, rolling around on the floor. 

If we win, he’s happy. 

And if I play my worst game ever? 

He’s still smiling.

“Papa home!!!!”

Love you, buddy.

— Tijjani