What Was Mesut Up To In Vegas, Anyway? The Secret Footballer Thinks He Knows!

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What Was Mesut Up To In Vegas, Anyway? The Secret Footballer Thinks He Knows!

This summer we all had lots of fun wondering what on earth Mesut was up to in Vegas (and who the hell spends 2 weeks there anyway?)

Well, perhaps we can get an idea by turning to The Guardian's "Secret Footballer" for an inside look.

For those of you who are puzzled, The Guardian (which runs the best football sports page of any kind) has a "Secret Footballer" who writes tell-all columns about life at the top. He writes anonymously, since his contract forbids arrangements with newspapers of this kind. While there are certainly many clues dropped as to his identity, and there is a running competition (and even a webpage "whoisthesecretfootballer.com") among readers to determine who he is (and one theory is that he doesn't exist), he has yet to be unearthed.

For now he's still writing columns and has published a book (again, anonymously) of his experiences of the pressures of life in the Prem, playing abroad, his battles with crippling depression etc...

A complete list of his columns CAN BE FOUND HERE

And here is an excerpt from one of his books of a vacation taken in Las Vegas...

The money players earn makes anything a possibility. Over the past few years, Las Vegas has overtaken Marbella as the number one destination for footballers looking to let their hair down. Out there, even our worst behaviour looks sedate. A few seasons ago, I made the pilgrimage with a group of regular revellers and was blown away by the debauchery. By the end of the week, eight players had new tattoos and one player took a local girl back to England and married her in a shotgun wedding.

Halfway through the trip, one of the players said that Lindsay Lohan had invited us to her house in Los Angeles – something that didn't appeal to me. That turned out to be a great decision because on their arrival they quickly realised that she was under house arrest. As one of the lads later told me, "We drove five hours to watch a fucking movie."

I've been to just about every club and trendy bar worth going to, and I've seen every kind of show. But I've never seen a place quite like TAO in Las Vegas. We took a table that had a $5,000 minimum spend. In Vegas, you absolutely must have a "sorter" – a type of concierge who knows everyone in town, will get you the best seats for shows, clubs, restaurants and pool parties, have helicopters and limos on tap and access to all the women a man could ever need. As we took our seats, "Jess" introduced us to the owners and explained who we were. Five minutes later a parade of drop-dead gorgeous women walked in a line past our table. Each time we saw one we liked we had to tell Jess, who'd seat them at the table.

It was hugely embarrassing for me, but the girls make thousands of dollars a night and I'm not here to judge. Behind us was another table that included some proper stars, among them a Barcelona player. We had a couple more spaces to fill; when a woman who was a complete knockout walked past the table, everyone stood up in unison and yelled, "That one!"

She had not gone unnoticed by the table behind and, when Jess reappeared, we realised we were not quite as important as we thought we were. Jess told us: "The table behind have asked me to tell you that whatever you offer for this girl, they will double it." One of our party, mortally offended at losing the girl to the table behind us, challenged them to a "champagne war". The idea is to send over a bottle of champagne; the other table is then meant to reciprocate, and on it goes until the bill gets too big for one side to pay. If a table keeps playing but cannot afford to pay, they are forced into the ultimate loss of face – they are marched out of the club by security to heckles and wolf whistles.

The final bill? Just short of $130,000, excluding tip, which as Jess explained on the way back to the hotel was nowhere near the record but still a great effort. Those situations can be awkward. I had made it clear that I did not want to participate, but I was only kidding myself. How could I possibly sit at the table and buy my own drinks? That's why I didn't put up any resistance as I checked out and paid my final bill of $14,000, which included some ridiculous overpriced room service and a helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon.

The rest of the article CAN BE FOUND HERE and is a riveting read. It's a number of excerpted portions of the book and was very interesting.