Zlatan Ibrahimovic was honoured on Monday in a Swedish football gala, and of course he’s been speaking to the media. The former PSG striker has received some criticism in English football for failing to have the huge impact some expected he would, given his last season for PSG in Ligue 1.
Ibrahimovic has been quoted by Aftonbladet explaining that Jose Mourinho was the reason he joined Manchester United, but he considers the team not to be as good as PSG: “Very much so. The team I signed for this summer is not as strong as the one I left (Paris Saint-Germain), but when Mourinho called the decision was easy. When he calls I have no problem coming, all we had to decide was when I was to be presented as Man U player. The rest, the financial deal, was not the difficult part.
“It was about the challenge really, and I will never say no to a challenge. This is what I wanted; coming to one of the world’s biggest clubs, that has had troubles and not won much of late, and try the Premier League. That is the challenge.”
If Ibrahimovic continues scoring goals, having broke a recent drought against Swansea City, then there’ll be calls for him to continue and the big Swede isn’t ruling it out: “If I want to. We’ll see. It’s not only about football, it’s about all the rest as well. How do I feel? How do I feel physically? Mentally? But that’s no problem really, I can handle that easily. I felt more pressure in PSG.”
It may be considered strange that Ibrahimovic feels there was more pressure at PSG, perhaps he’s been making himself immune to it, or perhaps the English media haven’t been as so quick to point out his failings as the French were whenever he dropped below the highest standards.
On being arrogant, the striker who during the gala said he seriously thinks the local stadium should be named after him, said: “People essentially have got the picture of me as ’cocky’ and ’arrogant’ because that is what newspapers wrote in the beginning. Then, there is also a fair deal of ’latent racism’, because my name is Ibrahimovic and not Svensson or Andersson. I was something completely different. And then there is, of course, envy. Lots of people never wanted me to make it because of who I was, how I spoke and acted. But all of that triggers me, it has given me a lot of energy and motivation throughout the years. It has been an advantage, really.”
It may be something of a stretch for Ibrahimovic to say the idea of him being arrogant is racist. However, there could be some truth in that he was treated differently at the start of his career and has since created a persona that he feels the need to continually back up.
