David Luiz stands up in the five-star elegance of Le Royal Monceau hotel close to the Arc de Triomphe in the heart of Paris and drops his trousers. He reveals a hugely pronounced, deep indentation in his right leg which he will carry with him for the rest of his life because he was so determined to play for Chelsea in the 2012 Champions League final.
There is no lasting damage to Luiz – he has not lost any power, in fact he is stronger – but his hamstring certainly does not look normal. And all because he played in that game through a barrier of pain that prevented him from training or even running.
Luiz, who joined Paris Saint-Germain last summer for £48 million, a world-record fee for a defender, will face his former club at the Parc des Princes on Tuesday in the last 16 of Europe’s premier competition.
His story from that extraordinary final – to cap an extraordinary campaign – demonstrates his crucial role in winning the trophy that mattered so much to his former club (and to his present one now) and its owner.
Luiz is the joker; the life and soul; the leader; the Geezer, one of the first words he learnt at Chelsea from the quaintly named driver ‘Bulldog’.
“Mash potato, rice,” were his other early words at the club, he says. “And beef.” But hear him talk of how he felt the night before that final against Bayern Munich as the Chelsea head physiotherapist Jason Palmer desperately worked to try to get him fit after he was injured in the FA Cup semi-final against Tottenham Hotspur a month earlier and you discover a far more serious and far more revealing side to his character.
With John Terry and Branislav Ivanovic suspended Chelsea needed Luiz more than ever – but first he needed to pass Palmer’s fitness test.
“I said to him,” Luiz recalls in hushed tones. “ ‘You know how I worked hard in my life to be here? You know when I left my family I was 14-years-old? You know tomorrow there are 200 million Brazilians in the world and just one can be on the pitch? You know what it is for my life to be here? Then it’s not for you to say something, to say I cannot play tomorrow. I will do the test but even if I fail you go to [the then manager Roberto] Di Matteo and say to him that I play tomorrow.’
“He said ‘no’. I said: ‘You go there and you say to him, if not, I kill you. And tomorrow we will be champions of Europe, no problem. Trust me.’ And he did. Di Matteo came to my room and I said: ‘No problem boss, I play tomorrow and let’s be champions of Europe.’ ”
Luiz had earlier that day bumped into Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea owner, in the team hotel. “I went to the hotel lounge and Abramovich was there and he said: ‘How are you, how is the leg?’ ” Luiz recalls. “And I said: ‘No problem. Tomorrow I play with the head and the heart, so no problem.’ And he said: ‘No, my God, I’m nervous,’ and I’m like, ‘keep calm’.”
Luiz’s recollections of the match itself are vivid, with Chelsea winning on penalties after a 1-1 draw against Bayern in their home stadium. Arjen Robben missed a penalty in normal time; Thomas Müller scored in the 84th minute; Didier Drogba equalised two minutes from the end. “I remember when they scored I was saying ‘believe, believe’,” Luiz says.
“And then it’s 2-0 to them in the penalty shoot-out and it’s my penalty to take – I scored and after that I was so... the energy inside me on this day was a lot because they scored in the 84th minute and I said ‘believe, I know’.
“[Before that] they had had a penalty with Robben and Petr Cech saved and I thought: ‘I know.’
“In the shoot-out I was behind [Juan] Mata – Mata missed his penalty and he was so sad. And I said: ‘No problem Mata, look.’ And there was Petr Cech – save, then post. You know when you say things and you feel ‘there is too much power’ and during the match I was telling [the Bayern striker] Mario Gömez: ‘We play bad but we will win. Look your team is playing better but we are going to win.’ All the time I was saying it. At the corner kick [Bastian] Schweinsteiger came to me to mark me and I said: ‘No problem, it’s not me who will score.’ And Didier scored. And Schweinsteiger looked at me as if to say ‘what the?’
“You can see that image of Mario Gömez when he scores his penalty and he walks past me and he says, ‘OK, I want to see you now’, and I scored. Then after the game I saw him and he said: ‘Oh my God, don’t talk to me, you must have some magic or something,’ and I said: ‘No, it’s just trust.’ It was special. Special.”
For a moment Luiz stops talking. The hamstring “will stay like that now”, he then explains. “I had to work to get the muscles big... when you have some injuries like this if you don’t wait for the right time then the fibre changes – as it did in the final. There was a gap in my leg, I played 120 minutes, celebrated, the adrenaline is high and then the recuperation starts – it is stronger now.”
Abramovich joined in the celebrations. “He asked me how I was. I was ‘no problem’,” Luiz says. “After the game we were just hugging, he was saying I was crazy. He told me to enjoy it. It is special for anyone to win it, these kind of guys who own a team and try to make a fantastic club and team.
“To put your team in the top level of the Champions League is special. He showed emotion, he is not just a Russian guy without a heart. He showed it a lot.”
Emotion is not something that Luiz hides either although when it came to leaving Chelsea last June it was a logically reasoned decision. “To leave?” Luiz says. “I decided to leave after the end of the season. Chelsea offered me a new contract and I said to them: ‘I’m not feeling the same thing like I was feeling years ago.’ Great life in London, great moments, we were champions of Europe, I had an amazing connection with the fans, my team-mates, everyone at the club.
“But I decided my cycle was finished and I wanted to live a different moment now in my life. I was not playing as much as I was playing the previous season. I played all the big games – if you check all the big games. I played well in different positions.
“People tried to make stories about me and [Jose] Mourinho. Never had any history [stories]. He was the boss and decided who plays and who doesn’t. But many times when he doesn’t put David Luiz in, there was a ‘break’. Oh my God. I’m just one more player. But it was all natural. I said ‘thank you’ to everyone. I was very happy in Chelsea but I decided now is the moment for another place and it became a great opportunity for me to come to a big project. Fantastic club. And I said ‘now I want to go to PSG’.”
But did Mourinho try and convince him to stay? “No,” Luiz says. “I think like when he left Real Madrid and he said he wanted to go where he felt good. I was not feeling good there [at Chelsea] and I said I want to leave. He didn’t try too much because I was in Brazil and we just spoke on the telephone. And he said: ‘It’s OK, you can go.’ ”
Luiz was in Brazil because of the World Cup. He was a key, symbolic part of his vast nation’s attempt to win the tournament; an iconic figure in his style, his ethos and his distinctive appearance. And how much it all meant.
“I am natural,” Luiz says. “I can wake up crazy or normal, it depends. I’m a natural. I’m not an actor to try to hide and do something because ‘they’ love it. I try and do what I feel. When I was young I was a kid that never stopped. I wanted to do everything; a lot of energy. I didn’t have this big hair. But I was a happy person. My parents taught me to say more thanks to life than to complain.”
So why the big hair? “It was in Europe –because of the wind,” says Luiz, who joined Benfica in 2007 before leaving for Chelsea in January 2011 in a deal worth £25 million including Nemanja Matic moving to the Portuguese club. “The weather was so cold in Lisbon when I arrived.
“I came from Salvador, Bahia and I arrived in February on the last day of the transfer window. It was so cold and I decided ‘let’s grow the hair to hide my ears’. And after that it became nice hair. Not very nice but people started to talk about that but it’s just one more part of me.” What ‘makes’ David Luiz matters to him.
“First of all you have to be a great example as a human being. Footballers have a great opportunity to be a good example because the kids want to listen to you and be like you in many ways.
“It’s like this – I don’t know if you have kids but kids in football is a different person. Sometimes you tell a kid to go clean their teeth at night but if the dad says: ‘I wash my teeth every night at 10 o’clock.’ Then the kid will do it if he likes me, for sure, he goes. I just give you an example. After that you have many things to do. Show them my character, my dignity, my position in society. Playing football is too small when you have a big opportunity like that to talk to millions in the world.”
“It’s like this – I don’t know if you have kids but kids in football is a different person. Sometimes you tell a kid to go clean their teeth at night but if the dad says: ‘I wash my teeth every night at 10 o’clock.’ Then the kid will do it if he likes me, for sure, he goes. I just give you an example. After that you have many things to do. Show them my character, my dignity, my position in society. Playing football is too small when you have a big opportunity like that to talk to millions in the world.”
That talk stopped, traumatically, abruptly, unforgettably as Brazil crashed out of the World Cup in losing their semi-final against Germany 7-1 with Luiz captaining the team. “It was like a nightmare,” Luiz says.
“Especially because it was in Brazil and we expected many things – but not a result like that. During the first-half I think in 10 minutes they scored four goals? And you think: ‘Oh my God, now it’s finished, let’s hope we try to score as many as we can’.”
Was it his worst moment in football? “After the game, yes, you feel that,” Luiz says. “But during you don’t have time to feel anything. Because it was one, two, three - bang.
“When you lose one goal and you try to score you lose more energy than when it’s one-two-three finished. 7-1? The group didn’t deserve that. It was an amazing group, great coach and atmosphere. But it was part of life. Maybe we’ll just have the answer in a few years. You never know.
“Like you become one of the best players in the competition [Luiz was in the team of the year] and then everything was finished. But you need to be mature after that.
“On reflection, in the holidays, everyone reflects on the positive things that you need to keep doing the same thing and the negative things that you need to improve for the future. That’s how footballers need to think, because football never stops. We’re playing games again. Life doesn’t stop so I think only the strongest can survive.”
There was too much emotion? “No, I don’t think so,” Luiz says. “The World Cup was a good experience for life for my personal and professional life because it was in Brazil and to see my country together again. There were great and bad moments during the competition.
“When you sing, it was a natural thing. It started in the Confederation Cup for the first time in Fortaleza. My country, they suffer with a lot of things and sport, especially football puts everyone together. It’s a special moment not just for Brazil. I know how important football is in Brazil and how emotional they get with football to forge their problems and be happy for some moments. It was a natural thing during the competition.”
Facing Chelsea will revisit some of the criticisms Luiz has faced. “Even this,” he says. “Sometimes they [his critics] try to make excuse and they attack David for nothing. Sometimes they are right and when I make a mistake in a game I always, always, in my life, I assume responsibility and I say: ‘Yeah, it was my mistake. Finish.’ All the things on the pitch you can never say I don’t do that. But sometimes there are lies. But it’s part of life and now I am more experienced and I know more about this kind of thing.
“It will be nice to play Chelsea, for my history and my career, to be in the Champions League. You cannot choose your opponents. It will be a great game, a fantastic match. Hazard is a different level, Willian is, as well, Fabregas has come in and he is the thermometer of the team, so he is very important, key player, and Matic is a monster.”
Does he stay in touch? “Yeah, yeah. Many of them. The Brazilians, of course, Ivanovic is my very good friend,” Luiz says. “I speak with Hazard sometimes. Petr Cech. This is our Brazilian culture. I think we prefer to know more about the heart of the person.”
Still he will be determined to eliminate his former club. “I was very happy in Chelsea and now I’m happy here chasing titles because this is important for the professional life,” Luiz says. “I want to qualify. When you play for big clubs it is a priority to win all the competitions. You need to show in the exact moment and prove it. Both teams have too much quality. We have experience. If Chelsea want to win they need to show on the pitch. It doesn’t happen anywhere else – it is on the pitch.”
netsten
10 years ago
David Luiz stands up in the five-star elegance of Le Royal Monceau hotel close to the Arc de Triomphe in the heart of Paris and drops his trousers. He reveals a hugely pronounced, deep indentation in his right leg which he will carry with him for the rest of his life because he was so determined to play for Chelsea in the 2012 Champions League final.
There is no lasting damage to Luiz – he has not lost any power, in fact he is stronger – but his hamstring certainly does not look normal. And all because he played in that game through a barrier of pain that prevented him from training or even running.
Luiz, who joined Paris Saint-Germain last summer for £48 million, a world-record fee for a defender, will face his former club at the Parc des Princes on Tuesday in the last 16 of Europe’s premier competition.
His story from that extraordinary final – to cap an extraordinary campaign – demonstrates his crucial role in winning the trophy that mattered so much to his former club (and to his present one now) and its owner.
Luiz is the joker; the life and soul; the leader; the Geezer, one of the first words he learnt at Chelsea from the quaintly named driver ‘Bulldog’.
“Mash potato, rice,” were his other early words at the club, he says. “And beef.” But hear him talk of how he felt the night before that final against Bayern Munich as the Chelsea head physiotherapist Jason Palmer desperately worked to try to get him fit after he was injured in the FA Cup semi-final against Tottenham Hotspur a month earlier and you discover a far more serious and far more revealing side to his character.
With John Terry and Branislav Ivanovic suspended Chelsea needed Luiz more than ever – but first he needed to pass Palmer’s fitness test.
“I said to him,” Luiz recalls in hushed tones. “ ‘You know how I worked hard in my life to be here? You know when I left my family I was 14-years-old? You know tomorrow there are 200 million Brazilians in the world and just one can be on the pitch? You know what it is for my life to be here? Then it’s not for you to say something, to say I cannot play tomorrow. I will do the test but even if I fail you go to [the then manager Roberto] Di Matteo and say to him that I play tomorrow.’
“He said ‘no’. I said: ‘You go there and you say to him, if not, I kill you. And tomorrow we will be champions of Europe, no problem. Trust me.’ And he did. Di Matteo came to my room and I said: ‘No problem boss, I play tomorrow and let’s be champions of Europe.’ ”
Luiz had earlier that day bumped into Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea owner, in the team hotel. “I went to the hotel lounge and Abramovich was there and he said: ‘How are you, how is the leg?’ ” Luiz recalls. “And I said: ‘No problem. Tomorrow I play with the head and the heart, so no problem.’ And he said: ‘No, my God, I’m nervous,’ and I’m like, ‘keep calm’.”
Luiz’s recollections of the match itself are vivid, with Chelsea winning on penalties after a 1-1 draw against Bayern in their home stadium. Arjen Robben missed a penalty in normal time; Thomas Müller scored in the 84th minute; Didier Drogba equalised two minutes from the end. “I remember when they scored I was saying ‘believe, believe’,” Luiz says.
“And then it’s 2-0 to them in the penalty shoot-out and it’s my penalty to take – I scored and after that I was so... the energy inside me on this day was a lot because they scored in the 84th minute and I said ‘believe, I know’.
“[Before that] they had had a penalty with Robben and Petr Cech saved and I thought: ‘I know.’
“In the shoot-out I was behind [Juan] Mata – Mata missed his penalty and he was so sad. And I said: ‘No problem Mata, look.’ And there was Petr Cech – save, then post. You know when you say things and you feel ‘there is too much power’ and during the match I was telling [the Bayern striker] Mario Gömez: ‘We play bad but we will win. Look your team is playing better but we are going to win.’ All the time I was saying it. At the corner kick [Bastian] Schweinsteiger came to me to mark me and I said: ‘No problem, it’s not me who will score.’ And Didier scored. And Schweinsteiger looked at me as if to say ‘what the?’
“You can see that image of Mario Gömez when he scores his penalty and he walks past me and he says, ‘OK, I want to see you now’, and I scored. Then after the game I saw him and he said: ‘Oh my God, don’t talk to me, you must have some magic or something,’ and I said: ‘No, it’s just trust.’ It was special. Special.”
For a moment Luiz stops talking. The hamstring “will stay like that now”, he then explains. “I had to work to get the muscles big... when you have some injuries like this if you don’t wait for the right time then the fibre changes – as it did in the final. There was a gap in my leg, I played 120 minutes, celebrated, the adrenaline is high and then the recuperation starts – it is stronger now.”
Abramovich joined in the celebrations. “He asked me how I was. I was ‘no problem’,” Luiz says. “After the game we were just hugging, he was saying I was crazy. He told me to enjoy it. It is special for anyone to win it, these kind of guys who own a team and try to make a fantastic club and team.
“To put your team in the top level of the Champions League is special. He showed emotion, he is not just a Russian guy without a heart. He showed it a lot.”
Emotion is not something that Luiz hides either although when it came to leaving Chelsea last June it was a logically reasoned decision. “To leave?” Luiz says. “I decided to leave after the end of the season. Chelsea offered me a new contract and I said to them: ‘I’m not feeling the same thing like I was feeling years ago.’ Great life in London, great moments, we were champions of Europe, I had an amazing connection with the fans, my team-mates, everyone at the club.
“But I decided my cycle was finished and I wanted to live a different moment now in my life. I was not playing as much as I was playing the previous season. I played all the big games – if you check all the big games. I played well in different positions.
“People tried to make stories about me and [Jose] Mourinho. Never had any history [stories]. He was the boss and decided who plays and who doesn’t. But many times when he doesn’t put David Luiz in, there was a ‘break’. Oh my God. I’m just one more player. But it was all natural. I said ‘thank you’ to everyone. I was very happy in Chelsea but I decided now is the moment for another place and it became a great opportunity for me to come to a big project. Fantastic club. And I said ‘now I want to go to PSG’.”
But did Mourinho try and convince him to stay? “No,” Luiz says. “I think like when he left Real Madrid and he said he wanted to go where he felt good. I was not feeling good there [at Chelsea] and I said I want to leave. He didn’t try too much because I was in Brazil and we just spoke on the telephone. And he said: ‘It’s OK, you can go.’ ”
Luiz was in Brazil because of the World Cup. He was a key, symbolic part of his vast nation’s attempt to win the tournament; an iconic figure in his style, his ethos and his distinctive appearance. And how much it all meant.
“I am natural,” Luiz says. “I can wake up crazy or normal, it depends. I’m a natural. I’m not an actor to try to hide and do something because ‘they’ love it. I try and do what I feel. When I was young I was a kid that never stopped. I wanted to do everything; a lot of energy. I didn’t have this big hair. But I was a happy person. My parents taught me to say more thanks to life than to complain.”
So why the big hair? “It was in Europe –because of the wind,” says Luiz, who joined Benfica in 2007 before leaving for Chelsea in January 2011 in a deal worth £25 million including Nemanja Matic moving to the Portuguese club. “The weather was so cold in Lisbon when I arrived.
“I came from Salvador, Bahia and I arrived in February on the last day of the transfer window. It was so cold and I decided ‘let’s grow the hair to hide my ears’. And after that it became nice hair. Not very nice but people started to talk about that but it’s just one more part of me.” What ‘makes’ David Luiz matters to him.
“First of all you have to be a great example as a human being. Footballers have a great opportunity to be a good example because the kids want to listen to you and be like you in many ways.
“It’s like this – I don’t know if you have kids but kids in football is a different person. Sometimes you tell a kid to go clean their teeth at night but if the dad says: ‘I wash my teeth every night at 10 o’clock.’ Then the kid will do it if he likes me, for sure, he goes. I just give you an example. After that you have many things to do. Show them my character, my dignity, my position in society. Playing football is too small when you have a big opportunity like that to talk to millions in the world.”
“It’s like this – I don’t know if you have kids but kids in football is a different person. Sometimes you tell a kid to go clean their teeth at night but if the dad says: ‘I wash my teeth every night at 10 o’clock.’ Then the kid will do it if he likes me, for sure, he goes. I just give you an example. After that you have many things to do. Show them my character, my dignity, my position in society. Playing football is too small when you have a big opportunity like that to talk to millions in the world.”
That talk stopped, traumatically, abruptly, unforgettably as Brazil crashed out of the World Cup in losing their semi-final against Germany 7-1 with Luiz captaining the team. “It was like a nightmare,” Luiz says.
“Especially because it was in Brazil and we expected many things – but not a result like that. During the first-half I think in 10 minutes they scored four goals? And you think: ‘Oh my God, now it’s finished, let’s hope we try to score as many as we can’.”
Was it his worst moment in football? “After the game, yes, you feel that,” Luiz says. “But during you don’t have time to feel anything. Because it was one, two, three - bang.
“When you lose one goal and you try to score you lose more energy than when it’s one-two-three finished. 7-1? The group didn’t deserve that. It was an amazing group, great coach and atmosphere. But it was part of life. Maybe we’ll just have the answer in a few years. You never know.
“Like you become one of the best players in the competition [Luiz was in the team of the year] and then everything was finished. But you need to be mature after that.
“On reflection, in the holidays, everyone reflects on the positive things that you need to keep doing the same thing and the negative things that you need to improve for the future. That’s how footballers need to think, because football never stops. We’re playing games again. Life doesn’t stop so I think only the strongest can survive.”
There was too much emotion? “No, I don’t think so,” Luiz says. “The World Cup was a good experience for life for my personal and professional life because it was in Brazil and to see my country together again. There were great and bad moments during the competition.
“When you sing, it was a natural thing. It started in the Confederation Cup for the first time in Fortaleza. My country, they suffer with a lot of things and sport, especially football puts everyone together. It’s a special moment not just for Brazil. I know how important football is in Brazil and how emotional they get with football to forge their problems and be happy for some moments. It was a natural thing during the competition.”
Facing Chelsea will revisit some of the criticisms Luiz has faced. “Even this,” he says. “Sometimes they [his critics] try to make excuse and they attack David for nothing. Sometimes they are right and when I make a mistake in a game I always, always, in my life, I assume responsibility and I say: ‘Yeah, it was my mistake. Finish.’ All the things on the pitch you can never say I don’t do that. But sometimes there are lies. But it’s part of life and now I am more experienced and I know more about this kind of thing.
“It will be nice to play Chelsea, for my history and my career, to be in the Champions League. You cannot choose your opponents. It will be a great game, a fantastic match. Hazard is a different level, Willian is, as well, Fabregas has come in and he is the thermometer of the team, so he is very important, key player, and Matic is a monster.”
Does he stay in touch? “Yeah, yeah. Many of them. The Brazilians, of course, Ivanovic is my very good friend,” Luiz says. “I speak with Hazard sometimes. Petr Cech. This is our Brazilian culture. I think we prefer to know more about the heart of the person.”
Still he will be determined to eliminate his former club. “I was very happy in Chelsea and now I’m happy here chasing titles because this is important for the professional life,” Luiz says. “I want to qualify. When you play for big clubs it is a priority to win all the competitions. You need to show in the exact moment and prove it. Both teams have too much quality. We have experience. If Chelsea want to win they need to show on the pitch. It doesn’t happen anywhere else – it is on the pitch.”