When Zlatan Ibrahimovic arrived at Paris Saint-Germain in 2012 he was dismayed to find the training-ground facilities were not good enough. Not only were the premises too small but, to top it all off, the players were not served any meals there.
PSG responded to the criticism and drew up plans for the Camp des Loges to be revamped and introduced a team lunch. Sadly, Ibrahimovic did not think the meals were good enough and went to see the club president, Nasser al-Khelaifi. It ended with the club chef being replaced (although in fairness the chef had to work with a budget of only €15 per player at the time).
Ibrahimovic craves perfection. He demands it from himself and he demands it from the people around him – and that is part of the reason José Mourinho made him one of his first signings for Manchester United. The 34-year-old Swede has joined to lead the attack and score but he will also raise standards and help reintroduce the winning mentality that seems to have vanished.
For four years at PSG he annoyed his team-mates almost as often as he did his opponents. All he wanted, though, was to win. After a disappointing first half against Troyes in 2012, his frustration with his team-mates and their poor passing boiled over and he set off on a rant that concluded with the line “my children play better football than you lot”.
Marco Materazzi, who played with Ibrahimovic at Internazionale between 2006 and 2009, remembers being at the end of some harsh Ibra truths. "He wants to win all the time, and simply doesn't let others make mistakes. He insults his team-mates a lot. I once missed a penalty and he really made me suffer the week after that. I don't agree with that. When a team-mate has done something wrong you should help him – not massacre him. That is Zlatan's biggest problem," the Italian defender told France Football in 2013.
But while he has the capacity to annoy players, he also has the capacity to inspire them and he leads by example. You could have asked any of his team-mates at PSG and they would tell you he has what the French call an incredible hygiène de vie. He does not drink or smoke. He rarely goes out and he eats, sleeps and rests in order to be in a perfect condition for the next game. That is all that matters to him: to do his best on the pitch.
At PSG, he showed up at training well before the majority of his team-mates and always gave 100per cent for the duration of the session, often ending up scrapping because of his desire to win a game of five-a-side. Afterwards he would stay behind to practice free-kicks and chat to the coach, Laurent Blanc, or the president. And when he talks he is used to being listened to.
When PSG’s No10 complained about the pollution in Beijing, for example, the club changed their destination for the following summer’s pre-season camp. No wonder, perhaps, some team-mates found it irritating that the coach and the president listened so much to a single player. The full-back Serge Aurier said last February that Blanc “sucked Zlatan, balls and all” in a Periscope live streaming – but the example Ibrahimovic sets to his team-mates was invaluable.
One of the main problems Blanc had with Ibrahimovic was he could not convince him to rest. In January last season, he was the only senior player to face the third division team Wasquehal in one of the early rounds of the French Cup. Players such as Thiago Silva and Angel Di María had not even returned from their Christmas holidays, never mind in a condition to play.
As Blanc told me a couple of years ago: "Zlatan is spectacular and the only footballing character that compares to him is Eric Cantona. "
Like Cantona, Ibrahimovic has a rare presence and an aura that affects everyone around him. He knows it and sometimes takes advantage. There was one time after a game at Parc des Princes when he walked into the mixed zone and told his team-mates: “Today no one speaks to the press.” Unsurprisingly, Maxwell, Thiago Motta, Marco Verratti et al did exactly as he had said and walked straight past the journalists. Ibrahimovic said he had been joking but you can never be quite sure with him.
It is the air of unpredictability that will test Mourinho and the United players. For while Ibrahimovic is a winner he is also a person who creates tension. Basically, he likes his private little wars. You may even say they keep him going. Coming from a troubled background in the outskirts of Malmo he did not have to look far for controversy as a youngster. He often got into fights and one former classmate said to the Swedish magazine Offside in 2001: "We used to have a table-tennis table in one of the rooms. One day he just destroyed it; kicked it to pieces. After that we weren't allowed to be in that room any longer."
When he joined his first senior club, Malmo FF, the parents of his team-mates raised a petition to get Ibrahimovic off the team, feeling he would have a bad influence on their well-behaved sons.
Ibrahimovic's career is littered with fallings-out and in 2009, when I travelled to Beverly Hills for the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet to report on his pre-season with Barcelona, I felt the full force of one. "I know who you work for and you know that I don't speak to you. Now don't even try again or it's going to cost you."
Ibrahimovic's eyes were dark and hostile and we were just five yards away. Needless to say, I did not get to speak to him. Aftonbladet had sent me there in the hope he was, after six years, ready to end his boycott of the paper. The reason for the boycott? An interview in 2003 while he was still with Ajax during which he said he did not have a girlfriend but was eager to meet one and start a family.
My colleague suggested we put a personal ad next to his interview with Ibrahimovic, which read: “Sporty person, 21 years old with dark hair looking for a serious relationship. I don’t drink or smoke, I like football and fast cars and I love children. I live in Amsterdam, what about you? Answer to the Swedish Football Association.”
Ibrahimovic did not see the funny side – and from that day refused to answer questions from Aftonbladet in press conferences and once even refused to give a press conference if journalists from the newspaper were let into the premises.
Six years after the personal ad Ibrahimovic had not forgotten, simply because Ibrahimovic never forgets. Pep Guardiola, the Manchester City manager, will tell you about that, after their only season together in Spain ended in a total breakdown of communication.
It is fair to say Ibrahimovic is a different person these days. Being a father – he has two sons with his partner Helena Seger – has had a calming influence on him and the boycott of Aftonbladet ended in 2010 (although to say his relationship with the media is better now is perhaps a stretch).
There is still an edge to him and it will be fascinating to see how he reacts to his new team-mates and how they react to him. First and foremost he is a winner. When PSG beat Marseille to lift the French Cup in May, it was the club’s 30th title. Ibrahimovic has as many on his own, collected with six clubs in four different countries.
Two of those came with Mourinho at Internazionale in 2008-09 and the United manager is now hoping the two of them can recreate the atmosphere and desire to win at all costs that led to those successes. As one former United player, Jesper Blomqvist, said, when it was announced Ibrahimovic was joining the club: “It is a perfect match for both. Apart from being a great player he also demands a lot from the people around him. Both players and staff. He shows others what is needed because he knows what is needed. He needs United but I think it is fair to say United need him too.”
It is impossible to predict how his season with United will pan out. He could turn out to be a brilliant signing who makes them title challengers again or he could just become a footnote in the club’s history. A lot of people in England still see him as an overhyped and arrogant has-been but so far in his career he has backed up all the talk with trophies.
As Ibrahimovic said in 2001 when asked who his favourite sports person was: “I like Muhammad Ali. My dad really likes him too. He is cool, Muhammad Ali. Cocky. He had an attitude but he didn’t just talk, he showed he was the best boxer in the world.”
Johanna Franden is a Swedish journalist who has covered Paris Saint-Germain for Aftonbladet for the past four seasons
(Guardian service)
