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Zlatan Ibrahimović (fourth from left) is back in the Swedish national team after five years - and has to submit
Photo:
JOEL MARKLUND / imago images / Bildbyran
The return of God began with tears.
Five years after his resignation, Zlatan Ibrahimović will make his comeback in the Swedish national team in the evening qualifying for the World Cup against Georgia.
The 39-year-old called the whole venture himself the "return of God".
But when he appeared in front of the press as a Swedish international for the first time in five years on Monday, Ibrahimović wept.
He was asked about his two sons, and the otherwise imperturbable assailant fought back tears.
Since he returned to Europe from Los Angeles, his wife and children have lived in Stockholm, and he has played soccer in Milan.
The international breaks were the only chance for Ibrahimović to see his family because of the pandemic.
Now he only had a couple of hours with her before he had to go a few kilometers away to the hotel bubble, which is currently used for national soccer teams.
“That was a whole new side of Zlatan.
I joked with a colleague: He's not just God, he's also human, «says journalist Olof Lundh, who has been accompanying the Swedish national team for almost 20 years for TV4.
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Ibrahimović training the Swedish national team: "I'm part of a puzzle"
Photo:
JONATHAN NACKSTRAND / AFP
Olof Lundh is no ordinary journalist.
Basically, he's the one who changed the image of Zlatan Ibrahimović in Sweden - for the worse.
In 2020 Lundh published a book about the national team that was explosive and almost bordered on lese majesty.
Several players and staff anonymously made serious allegations against Ibrahimović.
There was talk of a "depressing culture of silence".
Apparently no one dared argue when he took special rights and no one stepped in when Ibrahimović put down individual players in front of the rest of the team.
»Adult bullying at a high level«
There was a wave of publications in Sweden, the best-known daily newspaper “Aftonbladet” followed suit: a member of the supervisory staff spoke of “adult bullying at a high level”.
Back in 2017, Sweden's record player Anders Svensson said in a lecture about Ibrahimović's dealings with the team: "Sometimes he behaved so worryingly badly towards some players that you wondered what was actually happening."
Now that Ibrahimović is returning, many in Sweden are wondering: can this work out?
“In my head, I'm the best in the world.
But that doesn't really help here.
I'm part of a puzzle. "
Zlatan Ibrahimović
The Swedish selection has long been different from what it was in Ibrahimović's time.
Rather, she could celebrate greater successes without her dodger than with him.
Sweden not only qualified for the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia with the best result since 1994, they also made it to the quarter-finals there sensationally.
The recipe for success was the collective.
No player was above another.
Before the tournament, Ibrahimović had said: "A World Cup without Zlatan is not a World Cup." With him, however, Sweden had missed the World Cup twice in a row.
And could not win an elimination game at the tournaments in 2002 and 2006.
Still, many of his compatriots see him as the best Swedish footballer in history.
At 39, he is still surrounded by an aura of extravagance, and he is still responsible for those special moments on the pitch.
This season Ibrahimović has already scored 15 goals in 15 games for AC Milan.
(Read more here!)
He's still saying things like: “In my head, I'm the best in the world.” But Ibrahimović suddenly appears humble: “That doesn't help here at the moment.
I'm part of a puzzle, ”he says on Monday.
He has given up his traditional shirt number 10.
Leipzig's Emil Forsberg would have left it to him, but Ibrahimović chose 11.
The journalist Lundh Ibrahimović has never seen Lundh Ibrahimović like on Monday at the one-hour press conference before the World Cup qualifier against Georgia.
He has never taken so much time before.
And never before had he expressed himself so humbly.
Lundh believes: “This is a signal that he has understood that he cannot simply come back and that everything is as it was before.
He knows that he has to adapt if he wants to gain the respect of his teammates. "
So has Ibrahimović changed?
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Zlatan Ibrahimović (center) with Sweden's national coach Janne Andersson: "He's the new one in the group"
Photo: JOEL MARKLUND / imago images / Bildbyran
At least the culture in and around the national team has changed, says Lundh.
The old players and officials who talked Ibrahimović by the mouth and let him get away with anything are no longer there.
There is a flat hierarchy, with an assertive coach Janne Andersson, who, unlike his predecessor Erik Hamren Ibrahimović, did not make any promises of power and influence to persuade him to make his second return after 2009.
»Andersson became very clear to me in the interview and said in a general sense: I am the trainer, I decide, he is the new one in the group with whom we have achieved something;
he has to fit in. «There is no guarantee of engagement.
Ibrahimović as a banker - actually unthinkable.
At least that's how it was before, when he is said to have ruled the national team like a sun king and helped determine the lineups.
Ibrahimović never denied that he was rough around his teammates.
He even suggested that this was his way of making them winners.
And if you can't stand it, you're not made for professional sport.
The journalist Olof Lundh also sees the blame for this on the Swedish Football Association (SvFF), which has made itself dependent on Ibrahimović's charisma.
“He filled the stadiums, got the sponsors on board, made a lot of money.
That's why nobody wanted to spoil his mood.
So everyone did what Zlatan wanted. "
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Ibrahimović at the EM 2008
Photo: MICHAL CIZEK / AFP
That now seems to be a thing of the past.
The team has emancipated itself in the face of Ibrahimović's successes and is pursuing a more humane way of dealing with one another.
Instead of accusing each other for mistakes, you reinforce each other, stay positive even when things don't go well, and everyone works for everyone - including the strikers, says Lundh.
"That forces Zlatan to be a different person."
A young generation has long since moved up: Alexander Isak (21, Real Sociedad), Dejan Kulusevski (20, Juventus Turin), or Mattias Svanberg (22, FC Bologna).
They all grew up with him as a living legend, marveled at Ibrahimović in 2012 when they were youngsters at the fall back goal against England, and now they are playing with him.
“I think Zlatan can give a lot to these young guys.
He sets the standard and shows them how to get there, ”says Lundh.
And it is a generation that can laugh at his half self-deprecating, half-serious comparisons with God.
Ibrahimović once said that he copied this deliberate self-exaggeration as a recipe for success from Muhammad Ali.
But why does Zlatan Ibrahimović even bother with the national team in times of jam-packed fixtures?
"He wants a better end to his career on the national team," says Lundh.
At the upcoming European Championship he can replace Lothar Matthäus as the oldest field player in tournament history and become the oldest goalscorer.
If his body took part, he could even imagine playing in the 2022 World Cup, then he would be 41. To finally score at a World Cup, he has never succeeded in doing that.
Should the experiment fail with him, he would probably damage his own monument.
Olof Lundh believes: "The one who takes the greatest risk is Zlatan Ibrahimović."