On his birthday, an October day so gorgeous it seems as if summer might never end on the outskirts of Paris, Zlatan Ibrahimovic remains as defiant as he is cheerful. His 33rd birthday "began in the traditional way. The boys [his sons Maximilian and Vincent] came running into the bedroom, singing. It was early, but it was beautiful".
Ibrahimovic has sauntered in with his hand outstretched and his face creased in amusement. He places a carrier bag on the table. His almost mythic name, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, is written on a white card in ornate black lettering. He has received a few gifts but this is the most curious. Toulouse, one of Ibrahimovic and Paris Saint-Germain’s rivals in Ligue 1, have sent him a tub of ointment to cure his injured heel as well as a couple of club shirts for Maxi and Vincent.
“Today is your birthday, 33, the age of Christ, your son,” Toulouse’s message reads. “Now all the mums and sisters also want to see the phenomenon Ibrahimovic, Zlatan, bring the whole family back together around football. Happy birthday and long live the Z! Despite the perverse pleasure you took scoring goals against us the last two seasons, we are not vindictive. We want to thank you. For everything.”
Ibrahimovic enjoys the comic praise but it does not take long for his nostrils to flare as he considers how far he has come from the immigrant neighbourhood of Rosengard in Malmo, Sweden, to this feted status in Paris. He once lived in a small flat, above four flights of grimy stairs, each one a reminder of how different Rosengard was to the soft-centred image of Swedish equality for all. It was nothing like the home where he now brings up his children in Paris.
As the son of a Bosnian caretaker and a Croatian cleaner, who separated when he was two, Ibrahimovic endured rejection. Nobody asked: “How was your day, little Zlatan?” But the boy with a lisp and a big nose found solace in the ethnic outsiders, the immigrant communities whose story rarely gets told.
‘Real trophy’
Here he is now, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, if not quite the king of Sweden then still the mighty captain of their national team, a man whose latest feats saw him win his 100th cap last month while breaking an ancient goalscoring record. Even if he is mocked for his third-person references, which these days are delivered with a twinkling dash of self-parody, Ibrahimovic should be allowed to pose the question that has consumed him ever since he established himself as one of the world’s great footballers.
“So how did this punk from Rosengard get all the way to where I am now?” he asks. “Nobody believed I could do it. Everybody was trash-talking. They thought I will go away because I have a big mouth. They thought this guy’s vision is crazy. It will not happen. But I had these dreams of where I would end up. And now here I am.”
Ibrahimovic pauses to draw breath but the 33 birthday candles can wait. He has so many words to blow out before then. “Let’s go back 15 years and all I saw then has come true. Everybody who was trash-talking me? Now they are eating their words. This is my real trophy.”
Even after winning league titles with clubs in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and France? Even after all the money and fame, mixed with vitriol, that has made him a “phenomenon”? Does the image of him shoving acrid words down the throats of all those who once dismissed him really feel like his most enduring trophy? “Yeah, yeah,” Ibrahimovic says intently. “That’s my hunger. If I start to relax and I lose that, then I had better stop my football. I need that hunger. I still feel I need to do things 10 times better than other players. Just to be accepted and to improve myself.”
A film called From Rosengard With More Than One Goal will soon be screened on Swedish television – and the emotion feels raw when Ibrahimovic talks about a documentary charting his rise from the concrete tenement blocks. It is a story of transformation as a snotty bicycle thief turns into the snorting and magnificent artist of the bicycle kick and all other kinds of tricks with a ball which should not obscure his intelligence, imagination, nastiness and muscular force on a football field.
"It was emotional," Ibrahimovic says, "and the documentary took six months. I'm used to having a camera in my face but not a camera following me. When I did the book [the layered, cocky, poignant and very funny I Am Zlatan Ibrahimovic] one guy followed me. This time it's a camera crew. But I did it because I want to show everyone how my life is different from the inside and how I went all the way from Rosengard to the national team record. It's also personal. You get to know my father."
He tells me some moving stories of his dad. Once, when they had little money, Sefik Ibrahimovic managed to buy Zlatan a bed from Ikea but they couldn’t afford the delivery charges. “We carried it home between us. It’s fantastic what we did. I had time with my mother but I really lived with my father. One time he gave all his salary so I could travel to a training camp. He couldn’t pay the rent but he did that.”
Sefik was unsettled by memories of the Balkan war. He could not easily shake the images of his village in Bosnia being brutalised by Serbian forces. And so Zlatan was often left to roam the streets of Rosengard. He describes it now as “a paradise”, and stresses that he feels more at home in his old neighbourhood than the world’s most expensive hotels, but it was also a dangerous place. Football rescued him. “I was maybe scared,” Ibrahimovic says of all the alcohol and drugs in Rosengard, “and so I stayed away from them. I was different.”
This theme of difference sustains Ibrahimovic. “If you are different, or you have minimum possibilities, you can still succeed. I am living proof of that. I didn’t have that ‘wow’ life. I was not a ‘wow’ person. Those around me were not ‘wow’ people. I didn’t live in a ‘wow’ area. So my message to those who feel different, or unlucky, is that if you believe in yourself you will also make it. There is always a possibility. Everything depends on you.”
Ibrahimovic is often portrayed as the selfish braggart, the ultimate trophy-consuming mercenary as he moves from one giant club to another, from country to country, winning an astonishing 11 league championships in the past 13 years as he burnishes the cult of Zlatan. Yet, for a boy from an immigrant family, his achievements with Sweden resonate most for him.
“It was amazing,” he says of winning his 100th cap last month, against Austria in a Euro 2016 qualifier, in which he set up the equaliser in a 1-1 draw after he was accused of elbowing David Alaba in the face. The Austrians claimed the referee was “too scared” of Ibrahimovic to send him off but he shrugs aside a minor controversy. He slips instead into self-aggrandisement to underline how much it means.
“This [100th cap] was proof that the dream is real. It’s what I’ve been expecting. I knew I would get the [Swedish goalscoring] record. The record became important only when I said I will beat it. This was the 82-year-old record of 49 goals for Sweden. Nobody thought about it before I said that record will be mine. The captaincy only became important when I was made captain. Before that it was ‘okay, you become captain for some games‚ then you’, But that’s why I am living proof for anyone who feels different. I am the captain of Sweden and I broke the record.”
The grown-up punk from Rosengard smiles when describing his two goals against Estonia last month. “The 49th goal was a cross from a corner. It got headed out and I volleyed it. But the second one, the 50th, was special. It was a backheel. People said: ‘Oh, typical Zlatan!’ But it wasn’t my plan. I just wanted to score.”
Backheeled goals, sumptuous volleys and spectacular bicycle kicks are commonplace when Ibrahimovic is in the mood. “When you succeed, well, it looks great. But when you don’t you look very bad.”
Ibrahimovic often looks at his outrageous best when angriest. Playing for Barcelona against Arsenal in 2010, he scored two goals in a Champions League performance he describes as “one of the best games I’ve ever played in. The first 30 minutes was crazy.” Barça and Ibrahimovic dazzled Arsenal and went into a 2-0 lead which might have been trebled.
Even crazier were the four goals Ibrahimovic scored against England in November 2012 – in particular the incredible bicycle kick that completed his quartet. “If you don’t score against the English teams you are not good enough,” Ibrahimovic says. “It’s always been like that. Whenever I played against the English I didn’t score. So they said I am not good enough. Next game, same thing. Oh, see, he’s not good enough. But this triggers me. This gives me adrenalin. People think they might break me but I am the opposite. I get more anger to demonstrate who I am.
Training goals
“I take risks in the way I play so sometimes it doesn’t look ‘wow’. But then came England. They were saying the same thing about me but I just said it will be fantastic – the first match in our new stadium. The first goal came and I was happy. When the second came I was crazy. And when the third went in I looked around. ‘Okay, what will you say now?’ With the fourth, the bicycle kick, I thought: ‘That’s it. I don’t know what more I can do.’ Even if you live in England I have to say it gave me an extra-special feeling.”
At PSG’s deserted training ground, Ibrahimovic remembers his first session, after that game, back here in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, on the western fringes of Paris. He confirms that Paul Clement, the English assistant coach to Carlo Ancelotti, then the manager of PSG before they moved together to Real Madrid, described Ibrahimovic’s training regime after his four-goal extravaganza as the most concentrated he had ever seen.
“I worked harder than ever that day and I also scored the same bicycle kick goal in training. It was raining and I did the backflip again and scored in one of those very small training goals. Nobody could believe it.
“They were saying it was even more beautiful than the England goal. I said: ‘No, I prefer the England goal. We can go to YouTube and look at it.’ But that’s how I train. I always want to become better. If never being satisfied is a problem then I have it. At least it’s a good problem.”
Ibrahimovic admits that missing the World Cup was painful – after he and Cristiano Ronaldo dominated a dramatic play-off which Portugal finally won. He scored both Sweden's goals but Ronaldo got all four for Portugal. Ibrahimovic initially suggested: "The World Cup won't be worth watching without me." But he still went to Brazil and watched England v Uruguay and Spain v Chile. He is surprisingly sympathetic towards England – scorched by Luis Suárez. "It was a very good game but it's so difficult for England. They have so much pressure on them. Everybody [in England] expects them to win the World Cup."
That assumption may sound outdated amid drastically lowered English expectations but Ibrahimovic praises the team’s often reviled new captain. “I do like [Wayne] Rooney. For me he has a lot of hunger when he plays. I think he’s good for the team. The rest? I cannot judge them because I don’t know them.”
Does he ever wonder how different life might have been if he had signed for Arsenal when, 13 years ago, Arsène Wenger invited him for a trial? "Today, Wenger says it was a misunderstanding. But I didn't like being asked to prove myself," he says. "I know I'm good enough. I don't need to show it to you. Either you know who I am or you don't. I remember being in Wenger's office and you could tell he was the boss. It was Wenger! But I don't think I was so close [to signing]. I went to Ajax the next day."
Ibrahimovic seems made for the Premier League and has the personality to match the overheated soap opera of the English game. Will he ever play for an English club? “No. I am happy in Paris. I respect the Premier League. It’s one of the best in the world and no other league has this media interest. But I’m happy I’ve played in so many different leagues.
“In Holland they play beautiful football, the Ajax way, one touch, give and go. Their system is so interesting. They are not speaking about midfielders or strikers. It’s all about numbers. No 7 is right wing. No 9 is centre-forward, No 10 is behind him. The competition is not the same as other countries but it was the perfect start. And then I went to Italy.”
At Juventus, Internazionale and Milan, Ibrahimovic became a serial Serie A winner and a revered figure hailed as "half-ballerina, half-gangster". "Italy is the most difficult, the most challenging competition as a striker. They still think it's more important not to concede a goal than score one. In Spain they want to score a goal and then a second and a third."
His falling out with Pep Guardiola at Barcelona has been rehashed repeatedly. But it is striking to hear Ibrahimovic’s awe when reflecting on Barcelona. “I was probably with the best team in history. Their football was beautiful. When I prepared for a game, I knew I had won even before we started. I looked at the players around me and saw Messi and Iniesta and Xavi and Puyol and Piqué and Dani Alves and Busquets. Unbelievable! It was football from another planet and I loved it. It was technically perfect.”
Yet he has complained that Barcelona’s players acted like schoolboys in their willingness to accept orders. “Yes, but they were so disciplined. They are superstars but it was like – not a school but a place of incredible discipline. They were willing to do everything the coach tells them. When you go to Italy it’s different. You have 22 big personalities and each one thinks he’s the best in the world.”
Totally punished
Ibrahimovic’s admiration for José Mourinho was forged by working together at Inter before he joined Barcelona. Mourinho then drove Inter to the Champions League in 2010 – knocking out Guardiola, Ibrahimovic and Barcelona in a bitter semi-final. But he had long captivated Ibrahimovic. “Mourinho is very intelligent. He doesn’t treat everybody the same. He knows how to treat people as individuals to get 100 per cent out of them.”
Is Mourinho the most intelligent coach he has ever played for? “Yes. In the way he approaches players and – ‘manipulates’ is the wrong word – gets them very pumped up? No doubt.”
The discipline and respect of Barcelona, allied to Mourinho’s control, chimes with Ibrahimovic’s approach to fatherhood. When asked how he would react if one of his boys stole a bike, like he did in Rosengard, Ibrahimovic responds sternly. “They would be totally punished. Yes, I did it but I was not controlled. We were on our own but it’s not the right way to act.
“For me, now, discipline and respect is everything. Once they are 18 my boys can do what they want. But until then they are under my roof and it’s my rules. I want to be their father even as they begin to understand who Ibrahimovic is. You know? Zlatan. It’s not a picture I want them to have of me. Even when they joke and call me Zlatan I don’t like it. They must call me Pappa. For me that’s very sensible.
“I don’t want them to see their father like my supporters see me. Wherever I go people recognise me. They want a picture of me. But at home I want to be Pappa. I don’t want to be Zlatan. When I go out I represent my club and myself, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but at home I’m 100 per cent a family person.”
What of his own father? Do they speak now of the Balkan war that once surged silently deep inside his dad? “Mmm,” Ibrahimovic pauses. “My brother [Sapko] passed away six months ago. He was a reference point for my father. They were speaking a lot. But in the last few months my father has been speaking more to me about the family before him. But I don’t have that connection with the war because I was born in Sweden.” How old was Sapko? “My brother was 40. But it was not a shock. He had been very sick.”
Ibrahimovic soon brightens for he feels validated by everything he has achieved. “I have won 23 collective titles but the one that is missing is the Champions League. At PSG we are trying to win it. But even if we don’t, the 23 I have already won, coming from where I did, are incredible. I’ve had an amazing adventure.”
Does it scare him that the end as a great footballer is hurtling towards him? “No. I think it’s the opposite. I’m looking forward to it. When you play football you spend so much time in hotels and you lose a lot. My biggest son is eight. The youngest is six. It’s not like I have been with them every day of their lives. I want to be a family man and I want to stop when I am on top.”
That might be after he leads Sweden in the European Championship in France in 2016. But how will he replace the intensity of being Zlatan Ibrahimovic on nights when he scores four goals in a game – to supply “living proof” that his dream became reality?
Ibrahimovic smiles and spreads his hands wide in acknowledgement of an elusive answer. “I will have to find a way. Let’s wait and see. But you know me. I always find a way.” Guardian Service
