Royston Drenthe was hardly touched on MerseSide when his phone rang. It was at the end of August 2011, and the former Dutch winger, an arrival of the loan from Real Madrid, was about to start a turbulent season in Everton – a subject in which few were better at home than the man on the other side of the line.
“This is Andy van der Meyde, I got your song from Johnny Heitinga,” Piepende Drenthe's countryman, who had left Goodison Park two summers earlier after four controversial years in which he rarely put on a blue shirt.
'Royston, I hear that you are on your way to Everton. Don't do it boy, I beg you, don't do it. Liverpool has too many temptations for boys like us. Before you know it, the night clubs will be dragged along. Be careful not to ruin your career.
'Promise me that you will not go to the Newz bar. Bacardi flows there and you can ski on cocaine. And the women, Royston. Oh man, oh man, oh man. Those English women with their short skirts. '
If it had something to be desired as an assessment of life in Liverpool, it was a neat summation by Van der Meyde's fatal stay in L4.
The addition of the Dutchman to an Everton side that was celebrated last season was intended in the Premier League to bring pace and family tree to the midfield of David Moyes. But in the course of four seasons in Goodison Park, the fast living attacker for injuries for the injury would only make 20 league matches, a regrettable return on a weekly salary of approximately £ 30,000.
The £ 2 million Everton paid Inter Milan for the services of Van der Meyde initially something of a bargain, given that the San Siro outfit had almost £ 5 million splashed two years earlier to praise him from his boys' club Ajax, where he played alongside Wesley Sneijder and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
But by the end of his time at Merseyside, Van der Meyde had cost the club about £ 312,000 per match – a good deal less than the 90,000 euros per minute that he once claimed, but still a credible amount.
On the other hand, so much of the life of the 45 -year -old Dutchman has made the conviction that the wealth he has collected – he estimates that he has wasted around 11 million euros on 'cars, clothing, jewelry, all those crazy things' in the course of his career – hardly peels.
An example of this concerns his reason to reject a possible move to the Monaco of Didier Deschamps.
“It was good money,” Van der Meyde recalled. 'Tax free. They were also a good team. It was a nice offer. But we couldn't go. They are all apartments in Monte Carlo. We would not have had the zebras anywhere. '
The zebras in question – not to mention the turtles, horses, parrots and even a camel – belonged to his former wife Diana Grifhorst, a fan of exotic animals and the mother of his daughters Isabella and Purple, two of his five daughters.
But even the ability to accommodate African animals in the wild was not enough to make Van der Meyde's time in Liverpool a success.
Problems, in some shape, the Dutchman stole from the start, starting with a groin injury that delayed his debut for two months and continued with a thigh problem that put him aside again after only five games. It was at that time that his difficulties started seriously.
“I had no goal and couldn't do anything,” Van der Meyde said, in an attempt to build bridges with the Everton Faithful in an interview that was published three years ago.
'I would go to the club, they would put some ice on my leg, then I would go home. So I thought, “I'll go outside.” '
Enjoy it, he did, the purchase of a Ferrari and the now destroyed Newz -bar, a local hotspot with celebrities whose customers with football players, celebrities and models included. He lively remembers his first visit.
“After a few hours of drinking alcohol, I drove to the nearest strip club,” he remembered in his candid autobiography 2012. “Getting drunk in a strip club in the middle of Liverpool was not very smart. But I had a strong desire for naked women. '
It was there that Van der Meyde met Lisa, a stripper to whom he became 'addicted' after the couple started an affair. But when the Dutchman told his wife that he had to stay alone to recover from his injuries, she became suspicious and followed him by a private detective. The Fallout would cost him his marriage.
“I told my ex-wife that I wanted to go to a hotel because I was injured at the time and I needed some rest,” said Van der Meyde. 'But that was not the case – I was just cheating.
“A private detective had videos and photos of me and my new girlfriend, and then my wife called me and said,” How's your new girlfriend? “
“I still denied it then.”
It was the start of a downward spiral that would get a quick momentum. A stormy relationship with Lisa led to more drinks. The couple had a daughter, Dolce, who was born with a serious intestinal disorder and spent months in Alder Hey Children's Hospital. He was admitted to the hospital with breathing problems after he claimed that his drink in a bar had been enriched and was addicted to not being able to sleep on prescription, which he stole from the club doctor's office.
Inevitably it was not long before Van der Meyde's personal problems began to bleed in his professional life.
A first taste of the merseyside derby ended in violation, a replacement appearance that lasted only five minutes before the Dutchman was fired for elbowing midfielder Xabi Alonso from Liverpool. He missed the training, or would show up, so Moyes suspends him. The relationships were tense with some of his teammates, not least the club captain Phil Neville.
“He was the pet of Moyes, so I grabbed him a lot,” said Van der Meyde. “I think he told everything that was up to the boss and that's why he was a captain, he was a snitch.”
Neville, for his part, did not seem repentant.
“Andy was a sweet boy, but he didn't have the professionalism you needed to succeed,” he thought later.
Even Van der Meyde's best moment in an Everton shirt was not without complication. It came out of the club four months before his departure, when he crossed over Dan Gosling to score the winner deep in extra time of a fourth round FA Cup healing in Goodison Park.
So far, if not controversial. But the live TV cover is inexplicably cut away to an advertisement at the crucial moment and by the time the photos were resumed, Everton already celebrated.
Of course, Van der Meyde's crucial contribution to the victory made sure that he would be favorably reminded by that of a blue conviction. But the episode also seemed to embody the career of a player whose undoubtedly talent was made invisible too often by injuries, accident or the chaotic nature of his personal life.
Van der Meyde would play another game for Everton before his contract ended that summer.
Then he was alone with his demons. He had separated from Lisa. His former wife and children were back in Italy. The phone remained silent. Six years after former inter -boss Roberto Mancini had announced him as 'the best in your position in the world', his career was at an intersection.
“I still thought:” When my contract ends, there will be a new club, “said Van der Meyde.
'Really not. If you don't play, you are no longer important. Unless a Gaffer really likes you, it's over. It is really stupid that I threw it away. '
Refligant to give up his hedonistic lifestyle in Liverpool, Van der Meyde moved to a friend and started taking drugs for the first time. It was not long before he realized that the path he was could cost him more than just his livelihood.
“I took coke and alcohol and partyed seven days a week,” he said. 'I could not concentrate on football or something else in that regard. Parties was what my life was about.
'Liverpool is dangerous if you don't know how to control yourself. I realized that Liverpool would kill me. I had to leave. '
Van der Meyde returned to the Netherlands, where his friendship with PSV Eindhoven -Baas Fred Rutten helped to secure a process in the Philips Stadium. He was hopelessly out of shape to hide for nothing.
“I was really fat,” said Van der Meyde. “They thought I was someone else: two Andys!”
As his former teammates will confirm, that characteristic willingness to laugh – not in the least in itself – was always the most engaging qualities of Van der Meyde. But under the outer cheerfulness there was sadness.
“I drank to get away from reality,” he said. 'Other players can go out and just a little drink, but I drank to forget. That's why I had a problem.
“I have to have my family around me. When I went to Inter, it was because Ajax wanted to sell me, not because I wanted to go.
'I was not happy in Italy, for football reasons, and because the atmosphere did not suit me, but in Liverpool, because my marriage was over, I became unhappy outside the field. That's what it came on.
'I had a baby at Lisa after I had been with her for four or five months. I wanted to have that family unit again. That is what I need to keep me stable. '
Fortunately, Van der Meyde now has that stability. While his return to the Netherlands did not provide employment, it resulted in a casual meeting with Melissa Schaufeli, a hairdresser with whom he has two daughters, Lily Fay and Roxy.
“I saw her for the first time in my local pub and found her arrogant, but also fascinating,” said Van der Meyde. “We exchanged figures and after three days of ping on our blackberries, she said,” Would you like to come and eat? “
“We spoke, had eaten and from that moment it was pretty clear. Don't ask me how, but we both knew we would stay together. '
The couple came together after three months and had their first child a year later. They played the lead role in a popular Dutch reality TV program, Andy and Melissa, and also appear together on the popular YouTube channel of Van der Meyde.
As far as Liverpool is concerned, Van der Meyde should ever return, then he will be relieved to know that Newz Bar no longer exists – although it may no longer have been replaced by a branch of Hooters.
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