Zlatan Ibrahimovic appreciation

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is like Marmite. Some people love the enigmatic Swede. And some people are wrong.

Here are some of my favourite quotes from the narcisstic thug/footballing god.

1. "It's true I don't know that much about Ligue 1, but Ligue 1 knows who I am."

2. "This has been a massive thing in the media, people chasing me in my home. This is not normal, I will chase them back."

3. “Then Guardiola started his philosopher thing. I was barely listening. Why would I? It was advanced bullshit about blood, sweat and tears, that kind of stuff.”

4. “It was the fault of David Trezeguet, who made me do one drink of vodka after another. I slept in the bathtub. Now I hold my vodka much better.”

5. “(Guardiola) was staring at me and I lost it. I thought ‘there is my enemy, scratching his bald head!’. I yelled to him: ‘You have no balls!’ and probably worse things than that.

“I added: ‘You are shitting yourself because of Jose Mourinho. You can go to hell!’ I was completely mad. I threw a box full of training gear across the room, it crashed to the floor and Pep said nothing, just put stuff back in the box. I’m not violent, but if I were Guardiola I would have been frightened.”

6. “An injured Zlatan is a pretty serious thing for any team.”

7. His response to being asked about the Pique picture (and gay rumours) "Come over to the crib with your sister, baby, and I'll show you who's gay!"

8. “First I went left, he did too. Then I went right, and he did too. Then I went left again, and he went to buy a hot dog.”

9. (Answer to criticism from John Carew that Zlatan’s moves are pointless.)  “What Carew does with a football, I can do with an orange.”

10. (After Sweden were eliminated from EURO 2012, but before his wonder goal) “I don’t five a shit who wins it, I’m going on holiday.”

11. “I was being too nice. I’ve done 325 kilometres an hour in my Porsche Turbo and left the cops eating my dust.”


12. (After being frozen out at Barca) “The Rosengard lads wanted to come down and smash the place up and of course that was nice of them, but it didn’t really seem right”

13. “I was the bicycle thief”

14. “Some idiot father in the team went round with a petition, ‘Zlatan must leave the club it said’. Ok I’d headbutted that dad’s son, but my manager tore it into pieces. He was a good bloke, Ake.”

15. (And finally here is one from Ibra’s agent Mino Raiola) “Now I think the people in Paris will have something else to see besides the Mona Lisa"