Free Stillness and Speed: My Story by Dennis Bergkamp Page A

a nine-to-five job and all the players are walking around with long faces.
I’d say: “Come on, let’s have a good game today!” and they’d say: “No let’s get a
result
today.” It was so difficult because you
see
the space, you see the things you can do, and you see the quality in the team. But nobody wants to play the way I want to play. Nobody wants to follow you and I was too young to create
something. And I think I turned into myself as well, a little.’
    You mentioned promises. What promises?
    ‘This was very important for me. Before we signed, the Inter president Ernesto Pellegrini came to meet us in Holland and promised to change the way Inter played. He said they wanted
attacking football, to be like the Milan of Sacchi. And that’s why they wanted to buy us, me and Wim Jonk. That’s what he said! And I believed him. So, at the beginning of the first
season we tried pressing. That’s what they’d promised. They felt like Arsenal did two years later: “We need to change.” But we played two pre-season games with the pressing
and we were all over the place. That’s normal because you’ve had a really different culture in the club. We didn’t know where to run. And we had a coach, Bagnoli, who for thirty
years played in a certain style. He can’t change. Maybe if they’d got a young coach in from Europe, or a strong coach like a Sacchi, it might have been different.’
    Your second season with Inter was just awful. The fans turned hostile, the media were hostile and you were injured a lot and ended up scoring just two goals. And you had a coach you came to
loathe: Ottavio Bianchi.
    ‘Yes, the first year was quite OK. The second was really difficult with the new coach Bianchi.’
    Wasn’t Bianchi the coach of Napoli when Maradona was there?
    ‘Yes, he did mention that a few times . . . every
hour
. I’ll just give one example of what he was like. He had an assistant coach who was a few years older. When we had a
double training session, while the players rested Bianchi would play tennis with the assistant. To get to the court they had to walk from the training ground, past the dressing rooms and across two
pitches. Well, I was brought up to show respect for people who are older than me. I look out the window and see Bianchi with his phone in his hand, walking out in front, and his assistant, who is
much older, walking behind carrying the rackets, and four bottles of water and a bag . . . He’s got all this heavy stuff. He’s walking like this, carrying everything! And Bianchi is
walking in front carrying nothing! Well, you lose my respect. That’s it. It’s gone. Maybe it’s supposed to be like that in Italy. But I can’t have that.’
    The relationship with Bianchi became increasingly strained, especially after Dennis returned to Holland over the winter break to get treatment for a groin injury. (Bianchi wanted him to stay in
Italy; Dennis was frustrated by the failure of Italian doctors and physios to help him.) In February, Bianchi called Dennis into his office. ‘He was really strong, attacking me: I
didn’t give enough, didn’t bring enough to the team, I had to work harder. And then he mentioned something about respect. And I realised: “That’s it, we’re going to
have to part ways.” I said: “Listen, I really don’t have respect for you. I’ve got respect for my dad, but I don’t have respect for you. The things you have done . .
.” (I had in mind the tennis thing, and the talking about Maradona, and what I saw as his arrogance and lack of respect for other people) “. . . so don’t talk to me about respect.
I’ve got respect for the people I should have respect for.” Well, that’s the end of the relationship, isn’t it? You know me. It takes a lot for me to get to that point, to
say those sorts of things. But I’d really had enough from him.’
    So who should we talk to from your Inter days?
    ‘Well, in the team, the people I was closest to