There are not many players, in a world where some clubs now attempt to exert control over individuals’ social media accounts, that could announce their own transfer online before their new team, but Zlatan Ibrahimovic is not your average footballer. In the 34-year-old Manchester United have acquired not just one of the modern‑day great strikers, but also one of the all‑time great personalities.
Ibrahimovic seems to have a killer one-liner to match every killer goal, but that outspokenness and penchant for controversy has often threatened to cast a shadow over his success as a player.
He has won the league in France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, and although one thing remains out of reach – the Champions League, in which United will not compete next season – few can rival his trophy cabinet.
Ibrahimovic has 28 major titles to be exact, not including the pair of Serie A titles revoked at Juventus due to the calciopoli scandal. In the past 13 seasons he has won the domestic title at his club 12 times, with the odd one out a second-placed finish at Milan in 2011-12.
Yet he has faced plenty of criticism – nowhere more so than in Britain. Four years ago Ibrahimovic said: “As always in England, all the media were against me.”
The suggestion from certain quarters was that he did not impress sufficiently against Premier League clubs and it was not until that stunning, near implausible overhead kick in Sweden’s 4-2 win against England in November 2012 that his brilliance was accepted by all. That, of course, was his fourth goal – after completing the hat-trick with a clinical free-kick.
Questions over his powers waning at 34 are tempered by last season being his most prolific ever, recording numbers that are a far-fetched dream for the vast majority. He struck 51 goals in 50 games, 38 of those coming in 31 league games. Sure, opposition defences in Ligue 1 may not be feared and he was playing for a team that had confirmed the title by early March but that prolific return is no less staggering.
There is zero doubt that he remains hungry for success but how much can a striker not renowned for his speed and with his 35th birthday approaching in October bring to the frantic Premier League?
Plenty according to José Mourinho, who believes the striker’s furious desire and ruthlessness will also help in a fractured dressing room after the disappointing reign of Louis van Gaal.
Their relationship is notably strong. Both have praised each other effusively since first working together at Internazionale during the 2008-09 season, where they won Serie A after Ibrahimovic scored 25 goals and made a clean sweep of the domestic player and goal of the year awards.
However he was then sold to Barcelona for £40m plus Samuel Eto’o, saying upon completion of the move that he was “living a dream”. That soon became a nightmare as he clashed with the then Barça manager, Pep Guardiola, and looked out of place during the embryonic stages of tiki-taka.
Mourinho had wanted to keep Ibrahimovic at San Siro but their admiration for each other only grew afterwards. “A player who gave me as much as Ibra will always be in my heart,” the manager has said. “He is very special, one of the best strikers in the world.”
In his autobiography, I am Zlatan, Ibrahimovic writes of Mourinho: “He’s the leader of an army but he also cares. He was sending me text messages all the time in Inter asking how I was feeling.”
Ibrahimovic says the Portuguese is “a guy I could more or less die for” and recounts numerous tales from that season at Inter where he would be desperate to impress the hard-to-please manager – as much an illustration of Mourinho’s ability to motivate as the player’s irrepressible hunger.
Similarities between the pair are obvious and their mutual dislike of Guardiola, the new City manager, will dominate discussion before the first Manchester derby of the season. “If Mourinho lights up a room, Guardiola pulls the blinds,” Ibrahimovic wrote.
Yet his unwavering confidence can rub people up the wrong way. “I can’t help but laugh at how perfect I am,” he has said but often those grandiose claims have backfired with spectacular consequences.
One such example came before Sweden’s 2014 World Cup play-off with Portugal. “Only God knows who will go through,” he said in a pre-match interview. And when the journalist responded that it was hard to ask for an answer from above, the instant deadpan response from Ibrahimovic came: “You’re talking to him.”
Portugal won and he subsequently threw his toys out of his pram, saying the World Cup would not be worth watching without his involvement.
Still, beneath the incomparable ego a rare and supreme talent lies and his knack for producing the audacious and decisive must not be underplayed.
Some players have had types of goal or pieces of skill named after them – the Panenka penalty, the Cruyff turn – but Ibrahimovic may be the only one with his own verb.
Zlatanera, meaning to dominate, was officially recognised in the Swedish dictionary four years ago. After spending the same length of time as the undisputed leading light in Paris, his ability to dominate in England will not come so easily.
Either way it will be compelling viewing as he attempts to bring an underperforming club back to very top.
“I came like a king, I left like a legend,” Ibrahimovic said of his time in France. To garner a reaction anywhere near that here would require something very special indeed.
