With the European Championship finals kicking off this month, this may well be just the opportunity many of the continent’s leading footballers have been waiting for. When that first whistle blows in Paris on 10 June, many of the players will be hoping they can live up to so great an occasion. One, however – Zlatan Ibrahimović, the legendary Swedish striker – is more likely to wonder if the tournament can rise to match his own lofty expectations and equate with his incredible reputation.
Ibrahimović is not a man burdened with an undue sense of modesty. When Sweden failed to qualify for the 2014 World Cup, he was heard to lament: “One thing is for sure, a World Cup without me is nothing to watch.”
While few could get away with such bombastic grandstanding, Ibrahimović seems to have been granted an unprecedented degree of latitude. Zlatan – as he is known to his followers and as he occasionally refers to himself when interviewed – frequently gets away with a level of self-promotion that would have seen others pilloried by the media and deserted en masse by fans.
Such latitude, though, is not just a by-product of the respect engendered by the 13 league titles that he’s secured in a variety of countries over the last 15 years that he’s been playing. Nor is it solely down to the 300-plus goals he’s scored in the process. It can’t even be entirely accounted for by the outrageous degree of skill and showmanship he so aptly exhibits on the football field.
Ultimately, it all comes down to his personality. It is his larger-than-life blend of bravado and braggadocio, subtly undercut by a teasingly self-aware sense of irony that has helped him survive his unpredictable, and sometimes wayward, journey. It is a journey that has taken him from the slums of Malmö to the very highest levels of international football.
The son of a Croatian cleaner and a hard-drinking refugee from the brutal Bosnian civil war, Ibrahimović was brought up in Rosengard, the suburban ghetto that housed many of the immigrants who had fled to Sweden’s third largest city. Here he lived in a tiny flat, four flights up from the crime and drugs that were infesting the streets below.
He was just two-years-old when his parents split, leaving him to be largely brought up by his father. Recalling his childhood, Ibrahimović says: “While I had time with my mother, I actually lived with my father. It was fantastic – some of the things we did. One time, he bought me a bed, but we couldn’t afford the delivery charges. So we carried it home between us. Another time, he gave me all of his salary so I could travel to a football training camp. He could never find money to pay the rent, but he found money for that.”
Ibrahimović learnt his football on the streets. It was here that the individual brilliance which would later characterise his career first became apparent. He explains: “When we played in Rosengard, it was all about putting the ball between people’s legs and things like that. After every trick people were like: ‘Ohhh’ and ‘Eyyyy.’ It was all about who had the hardest shots, the best tricks, the craziest moves … I loved it.”
Away from football, however, he drifted into delinquency and petty crime. Of those days, he simply says: “I was rowdy. I was mental. So, when we needed something, we went to the shop and just stole it.”
At 15, he signed for Malmö FF, his local club. It was here, though, that his unruly behaviour nearly brought his career to a premature end. Remembering this early brush with near calamity, he says: “My background made it tough for me to succeed as a footballer, while I could also be a little difficult. During one training session, I head-butted a team-mate. If I could put myself in that moment today, I would tell myself: ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ Back then, though, I was an angry young man.
“That player’s parents sent a letter round and asked people to sign it. They wanted me kicked out of the club. I did many stupid things back then and I made many mistakes. I learnt from everything, though. It proves that nobody is perfect.”
Fortunately for Ibrahimović, Malmö took a similar view. He was kept on, and he rewarded his employers’ magnanimity by truly knuckling down. Within a couple of years, he had made the first team and his goal-scoring prowess began to stir interest across Europe.
Very early on, Arsenal showed an interest in signing him. Even as a teenager, though, Ibrahimović had a heightened sense of his own worth. Recalling the approach, he says: “Arsène Wenger (Arsenal’s manager)asked me to have a trial when I was 17. I turned it down. Zlatan doesn’t do auditions.”
Instead, he joined Ajax, the most successful team in the Netherlands. His talent blossomed and the team won two league titles, with Ibrahimović more than contributing his share to its success. He says: “In Holland, they play beautiful football, the Ajax way – one touch, give and go. Their system is so interesting. While the competition is not the same as in other countries, it really was the perfect start for me.”
Italy proved the next stop on the striker’s peripatetic career. He spent two years at Juventus before the team was relegated, as a punishment for its role in a major match-fixing scandal. This was followed by three years at Inter Milan, where his goal-scoring feats helped the Italian side win three Serie A titles, while he personally notched up two Player of the Year awards.
It was the two managers he spent time under in Italy that he credits with turning him into one of the most feared strikers in the game – Fabio Capello at Juventus and José Mourinho at Inter. Of the pair, he says: “Capello gave me my winning mentality, while Mourinho turned me from a cat into a lion. He dragged things out of me at Inter that no one had managed before.”
His next manager, however, was to prove less to his liking. After being sold to Barcelona for €70 million (HK$618 million), he came under the tutelage of Pep Guardiola.
Ibrahimović says: “I was probably part of the best team in the club’s history. The football was beautiful. When I prepared for a game, I knew I had won even before I started. I looked at the players around me and saw Messi and Iniesta and Xavi and Puyol. Unbelievable. It was football from another planet. I loved it.”
Used to voicing his own opinions, Ibrahimović found his team-mates’ unquestioning deference to their coaching staff a little hard to countenance. Inevitably, his relationship with Guardiola soon began to disintegrate.
Ibrahimović says: “I tried to make contact with him, but he didn’t want to speak to me. He was avoiding me. I thought to myself: ‘I’m not the problem. He’s the problem.’ There were no words, though, no answers. No nothing.”
After one particular match, the Swede’s frustration spilled over. He says: “I screamed at Guardiola. I told him that he had no courage and that it was ridiculous that he could not talk to his players. I kicked over a box in front of him. I hoped that this would get him angry and that maybe he would at least talk to me. But nothing. He picked up the box. Put it back. And walked out of the room.”
Soon afterwards, Ibrahimović headed back to Italy, this time joining AC Milan. Again he played a key role in the team taking the title, while also regaining his slot as Serie A’s top goal scorer and the league’s Player of the Year.
Now 31, he was made captain of the Swedish national side. He had proved to be one of the stars of the Euro 2012 tournament and was generally considered to be at the very peak of his game.
It was something of a surprise, then, when he agreed a transfer to the new plutocrats of the French League – Qatari-backed Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). For many, it seemed a backward step – an aging player accepting a last big-money move into a less competitive environment.
As ever, Ibrahimović, saw it differently. And with some justice. PSG has since emerged as one of the new powerhouses of European football. The Swedish striker is their figurehead, inspiring them to four league titles on the spin as well as three consecutive appearances in the last eight of the Champions League.
Speaking of his current form, Ibrahimović says: “I have never been better. The way I feel today is the best I have ever felt. You are as young and fresh as you think you are. I have proved this by continuing to do the things I am still doing. Age is just a number. Your head decides how young you are. And how old you are.”
Indeed, his appetite for goals seems as keen as ever. As does his penchant for the spectacular – the back heels and bicycle kicks he has made his speciality. Addressing his inner showman, he says: “When you succeed, it looks great. When you don’t, it looks very bad. It is the way I always wanted to play, though. Why be like everybody else, when you can do something special and different?”
At 34, however, he is aware that the end of his career at the very highest level may be fast approaching. He says: “I’m not scared of that. I’m looking forward to it. When you play football, you spend a lot of your time away in hotels and you lose a lot. My sons are eight and six. I’ve been away from them for a lot of their lives. I want to be a family man and stop while I am still on top.”
His contract with PSG expires this summer and he is adamant that, once again, he will be moving on. Indeed, some have suggested that China might be his next destination.
Any such move, though, might mean an end to his quest for high-level honours, notably the Champions League.
Ibrahimović, however, claims he would have no regrets. He says: “I have won 25 trophies. Even if I don’t win the Champions League, with the 25 I have already won and coming from where I did, it’s been incredible. I’ve had an amazing adventure.
“How did this punk from Rosengard get all the way to where I am now? Nobody believed I could do it. Everybody was trash-talking me. They thought I had a big mouth, that I was crazy. I had a dream of where I would end up, and here I am. Those who were bad-mouthing me are now eating their words. That is my real trophy.”
Even as he considers his immediate future, Ibrahimović is preparing to lead his country into this month’s Euro 2016. It’s clear that – despite feeling an outsider growing up – he takes special pride in captaining the national team of his parents’ adopted country.
During the qualifying matches for the tournament, he has already broken Sweden’s goal scoring record for the tournament. With this very much in mind, he says: “It was amazing. It was proof that the dream is real. I knew I would get the goal-scoring record. I said I would beat it. I said that record would be mine and it is. That’s why I’m a source of hope for anyone who feels different. I am the captain of Sweden and I broke the record.”
Is there any chance that Ibrahimović could crown his impressive career this summer with international glory? While the prospect of Sweden lifting the trophy may seem fanciful, so does the idea of the delinquent son of a poor Bosnian immigrant winning footballing glory across Europe.
If Zlatan Ibrahimović’s career has proved anything, it’s that everything is possible with a little self-belief. And, of course also a huge dash of inherent talent.
