"Passion" is the story of Japan soccer team coach Philippe Troussier, his struggle to make it as a player and manager and his travels around France, Africa and Japan. In the book, Troussier also details his philosophy and thinking as he prepares for the World Cup in June.

In this, the sixth of 10 exclusive extracts, Troussier recalls how pressure and media harrassment finally caused him to snap.

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May 2000 -- I was going through pure hell.

After losing 1-0 to South Korea in Seoul on April 26, a "Troussier bashing" campaign seemed to start from all sides. It was something I had never experienced before in my years as a manager.

With my contract expiring at the end of June, the media screamed that I would be fired. Reporters and photographers swarmed around my house on stakeout from dusk to dawn. I felt they were doing this just to annoy me, and it became impossible for me to leave the house. My wife somehow managed to slip out, but I had no choice other than to carry out all my work as the national team manager over the phone.

The King Hassan II Cup in Morocco and the Kirin Cup in Japan were just a month away, and I had no time to waste. Yet I was like a lion trapped in a cage. Even worse, no one would tell me what my fate would be.

This went on for three weeks until one day I lost my patience and decided to break out of my confinement. As soon as I drove out of the parking lot to head into town, three cars from a TV station started following me. After that it was all like a scene from a detective drama.

No matter how fast I went, the three cars stayed right behind me. I desperately ran a red light, but instead of pulling away from them they decided to take the same risk. My nerves then snapped and I began driving up a one-way street, ignoring no-entry signs and weaving along the road. I was endangering not only my own life, but also those people in the cars following me and even passers-by.

When I finally stopped at a light, a photographer yelled from behind: "OK, let's stop all this! Please stop!" They feared my actions would lead to an accident, and they were right. I had completely lost control of myself and it would not have been any surprise if something terrible had happened. I had never in my life been driven to such desperation.

After the car chase in Tokyo, the Japan Football Association listened to my demands and asked the media to back off. I finally gained some freedom.

For three weeks, I had been isolated. The JFA, which had internal conflicts, did virtually nothing to support me. Questions whirled in my head. What am I doing here? Did I make a mistake? Is there a reason I should be treated in such a way?

With the deadline for my contract approaching, of course it was natural for the media to wonder what was going to happen to the national team coach. However, I didn't think that I deserved to be treated in such a despicable manner. Had the same thing occurred in France, it would have been regarded as an invasion of privacy and would have resulted in a lawsuit.

Shortly after I arrived in Japan, someone took a sneak shot of me as I was walking around Tokyo. It was in a so-called gay area and soon the rumor spread that I was a homosexual. For the next few months, even my staff seemed to have doubts about me. This was my first "contact" with the mass media, and, as a result of this, I became more careful about where I went and especially avoided going out at night.

When having dinner, I would always sit looking toward the wall so cameras couldn't take my picture, and I would always avoid sitting next to a woman. I took these measures knowing that wherever I went there was always the danger that someone nearby was lurking in the shadows trying to take my picture. The media in Japan have a tendency to prey on people and devour them. Sometimes I even feel that people are watching us through a hidden camera in our house.

After living in Japan for a while, I came to understand that the media here cannot be avoided, because the media are an integral part of Japanese society. Government ministries have individual press clubs and public officials are scrutinized in detail and their lives thoroughly exposed. Any minor remark becomes an official statement.

In Japan, when you become famous you are also treated like a celebrity. So the reporters follow me around, and, of course, they have the right to do so. But the result of this system, which I would call "celebritization," leaves most of the media chasing after sensational news rather than providing educational information for its readers. This pursuit of commercialism leads to the exaggeration and distortion of reality.

Not long after becoming manager of Japan, the press started referring to me as a "Green Beret" (from the U.S. Army Special Forces) after conducting a practice session that included a lot of physical contact. Apart from being tagged as a Green Beret and a homosexual, I was also referred to as a "Red Devil" for losing my temper so easily.

The media in France do not concern themselves with these kinds of stories in the sports world. The sport itself is strictly and objectively evaluated. They have separate media specializing in show business. In Japan, however, everything is mixed up together. In the sports papers, you can see everything from sports to celebrity scandals to erotic photos.

In other words, the media are there not to provide information, but as a form of entertainment. Under such conditions, it is very difficult to obtain serious, trustworthy sports news.

If they are reporting about me as a football manager, how could they have no viewpoints other than those that described me as "a destroyer of tradition" or "a good businessman." I have the impression that reports that evaluate my work as manager of the national team, on the tactics and process of experiments I have worked on for three years, are rare indeed.

Managers do actually need the media to obtain feedback on their work, but if that is going to happen, the media must stick to being objective in their reporting. If the reporters are to become real professionals, they need to forget about Philippe Troussier as an individual.

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