sport news Inside the wacky world of Thomas Gravesen: New book details crazy career

Football star Thomas Gravesen has been described as 'a grenade with the pin pulled out' and his explosive career has now been documented in a sensational new biography.

He shocked team-mates, coaches and managers throughout his journey from boyhood club Vejle Boldklub to a glittering career that took him to Hamburg, Everton, Real Madrid and Celtic.

But at the age of 32, he suddenly retired and disappeared only to resurface several years later living in a luxurious gated community in Las Vegas, with Andre Agassi and Nicolas Cage as neighbours.

Rumours swirl around that the midfielder made himself a £100million fortune in the US. There's also reports he lost $54m in a high stakes game of poker.

Very little is actually known about the man dubbed Mad Dog, with some in Denmark even labelling him a unicorn due to the mystery that surrounds him. 

But a new book pulls back the curtain and lets fans find out about the life and times of one of the most colourful players ever to exist. Here are some extracts from one of football's most revealing stories.

Knocking one of Ronaldo's teeth out

Thomas made the move to Real Madrid after becoming undoubtedly one of Europe's leading midfielders at that point due to his performances for both Everton and Denmark.

Now it was an intriguing question of how good he could become with these facilities at his disposal and players of such high calibre to spur him on. Anyone who thought Thomas was going to Madrid just to pick up a big salary was in for a shock. Thomas was going there to play. He still only had one gear, the same one he had back in his days in the youth team at Vejle, and that was full steam ahead, no matter what obstacles appeared.

In training Thomas was his usual boisterous self, flying into tackles and putting maximum effort into every single second as if his life depended on it. But he also brought his sporadic poor judgement to Spain too and would think nothing of grabbing and putting any of the Galácticos in one of his bone-crushing bear hugs.

Of course, even they couldn't get out of them, no matter how long they'd spent in the gym team-mate Borja Fernández added: 'Thomas was a character, he made us laugh a lot. He was so much fun and genuine too'.

He went a bit too far, though, when he decided to throw around the world's top striker, Ronaldo, who was worshipped by millions and an icon to people everywhere. You can imagine the horror on the management team's faces when they saw their main source of goals, who was worth his weight in gold, in the unforgiving hands of The Ogre as he'd been dubbed by the Spanish media.

Despite being 6ft tall and rippling with muscles, Ronaldo for all his might couldn't get loose and ended up being tossed around like a rag doll. After some rough and tumble, the shenanigans ended with Ronaldo lying there minus a tooth. The incident, of course, made the papers.

While there was no malice or fallout, it showed that Thomas wasn't going to tone down his antics. Even if he was playing for the biggest club in the world, he was still going to have a hell of a lot of fun doing it. Thomas's Danish team-mate Morten Wieghorst said: 'In Spain, they wouldn't have experienced many players like him and that's why at Real Madrid that stuff came out about his old tricks, so to speak. They weren't used to that kind of character and to be fair, neither were we.'

Dating a Porn Star

Thomas's downfall was caused by a cocktail of elements and influences that hit him hard. I don't think he even saw them coming. While he'd been able to stay focused during his first six months in Madrid, once the season stopped and he had a chance to survey the scenery, it dawned on him just how much attention was on him.

The spotlight was burning brightly. Fans in Spain adored him and he was the biggest thing in Denmark. The likes of Beckham and Ronaldo were accustomed to intense scrutiny of their lives, on and off the pitch. They'd never known any different since becoming footballers. They were well used to having paparazzi following their car or leaping out in front of them as they left a shop. Thomas had been able to live a fairly normal life in Liverpool and Hamburg. He'd been well known but never one to trouble the non-sports media regularly. That was no longer the case. He wasn't only big news in Denmark, he was fodder for every news outlet under the sun as being a Real Madrid star meant you were fair game.

Danish football journalist Johan Lyngholm-Bjerge explained: 'Even now, after he's retired, if something happens with Gravesen, it's all over the newspapers in Denmark as people love to read it. He doesn't feel he owes the media anything, as there have been clashes. He's had relationships with women and you can imagine if a famous football player starts a new relationship, it's all over the magazines and lots of the stories were probably not true He got tired of that.'

Enter Kira Eggers, who politely declined to be interviewed for this book. She had been described as a 'porn star' and there's numerous X-rated videos featuring her online. She has also worked for Playboy TV and has done raunchy modelling shoots. 

It soon broke that her and Thomas had become a couple. As if the interest in him wasn't already at fever pitch, getting together with a porn star sent Thomas's profile rocketing into a different stratosphere. It was the sort of story that tabloid journalists salivate about in their sleep. Thomas was in his first public relationship since parting with teenage sweetheart Gitte Pedersen, and it couldn't have been more different.

He'd gone from someone he'd known since his teenage days to someone who was used to attention in a completely different way. Unusually, someone within his personal circle actually broke ranks as Gitte gave an interview in which she expressed her surprise about his new partner. Gitte said: 'Thomas and I had a very quiet life, and so I was very surprised to see him with Kira. I'm

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