Manchester United star Zlatan Ibrahimovic admits he was a ‘pain in the ass’ when he was started on his road to glory
But the new Red Devils icon reveals it was his father who inspired him to become a global superstar in documentary
ZLATAN IBRAHIMOVIC admits he was “pain in the ass” as a teenager footballer.
But Man Utd’s new superstar says he was driven to global success by his “demanding” father Sefik.
Ibrahimovic, 34, is expected to be one of the stars of the Premier League next season, having arrived at Old Trafford on a free transfer from Paris St-Germain.
United boss Jose Mourinho has signed him to become the main man up front and assume a leader’s role in the dressing room.
But in a new revealing documentary, Ibrahimovic reveals he was quite the brat growing up with Swedish club Malmo.
Speaking on camera aged 18 on the forthcoming documentary Becoming Zlatan, Ibrahimovic said: “I can be a pain in the ass. I’m hard to get along with.
“When it comes to football, I like to dribble. So sometimes, instead of passing, I dribble. Sure that might annoy the other players, but it’s part of the game.
“Without that, it’s no fun. Football has to be fun. Otherwise it’s not worth playing.”
Ibrahimovic acknowledges that his relentless pursuit for perfection has come from his upbringing he had under his father.
He explained: “I have my dad’s temper. He’s a confident guy, too. He knows what he wants, and he knows what he’s doing.
“But he is very demanding. He pushes me a lot. There was a time when we fought a lot. I just wanted too much.
“Sometimes he can be a bit rough with his words. But that’s good. Because if I’d played a good game, I might think I’ve made it. But he keeps pushing me.
“He said to me once: ‘You’re nobody until you’re somebody in Europe.’”
Ibrahimovic was brought up by his Muslim Bosnian father and Croatian Catholic mum, Jurka Gravic.
Growing up in Sweden, due to his mixed background, he was subjected to racist abuse and was cruelly nicknamd: ‘Zigge – the gypsy.’
Life was tough as the Ibrahimovic family rarely stayed in the same place for more than half a year.
He said: “We moved around a lot. One year, we might live in two different places.
“We’d move every six months. We didn’t like it, as kids, so we complained about the apartment being cold.
“Then we didn’t like the neighbours, and we moved again. But yes, we moved a lot.”
Swedish filmmakers Fredrik and Magnus Gertten first started filming Ibrahimovic in 2000 when he was first brought through for Malmo.
In one clip, he was asked by a teammate about the prospects of playing in English football.
And cocky Ibrahimovic joked: “No. It’s crap.”
The documentary contains several disgruntled teammates who, 16 years ago, slammed the young Ibrahimovic for his selfish play.
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Malmo striker Niclas Kindvall said on camera: “There were a lot of openings, but Zlatan didn’t see us, where a simple pass wouldn’t give us a scoring opportunity.”
Another teammate said: “We need to understand his way. But he also needs to find his place within the team. He isn’t a star yet, but he thinks he is.”
Patrik Eriksson-Ohlsson, a former defender at Djurgarden, tells a story of once marking Ibrahmovic out of a Swedish domestic match.
Ahead of their next encounter, he gave a newspaper interview in which he said Djurgarden’s three-man defence would once again stop him from scoring.
Yet how wrong that proved to be – with Ibrahmovic emerging as the man of the match.
Eriksson-Ohlsson explained: “Zlatan was a young, arrogant, cocky guy, who didn’t really have anything to be cocky about.
“It was like he almost enjoyed humiliating his opponents, more than scoring a goal.That if he cut someone down, it made him bigger.
“Well, my job was to mark Zlatan. In the first match, Zlatan was really pissed off. We had him exactly where we wanted him. Mission accomplished.
“The next match, it had been agreed Zlatan was being sold to Ajax. He went from being a nobody to being Mr Big.
“And everyone wants to bring the big ones down. There was pressure from the fans to see a tough fight.
“But he made a fool out of us. Cheated the entire defence. All three of us. He could’ve made a simple pass to the left, but chooses to dribble and shoot.
“He had read the article and wanted to show us: 'Forget about it, guys!' This is me.’”
BECOMING ZLATAN, which contains never-seen-before footage of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, will be released on DVD and digital download on August 15.