Will come back ? Will not come back? From an interview published in the daily Aftonbladet on November 24, 2020, Sweden was buzzing with rumors. All in black, sitting next to the twelfth “guldbollen” (the Swedish golden ball) of his career, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, 39, answers questions from sports journalist Erik Niva. Tremolos in his voice, his eyes shining, the AC Milan striker launches: “If you ask me and I answer honestly, yes, I miss the Swedish team. It’s not a secret. “
Was it the outstretched hand that coach Janne Andersson was waiting for? In any case, the next day, he boarded a plane for Milan. Of the meeting, we will know nothing, except that it was “Very good and productive” and “The dialogue continues”. It ended up being successful on March 16: for the first time in five years, Zlatan Ibrahimovic is on the list of players selected for the first match of the World Cup qualifiers, against Georgia, Thursday, March 25, at the Friends Arena from Solna, near Stockholm.
In Sweden, the return of the former international is not unanimous. Because if Janne Andersson seems ready to pass the sponge, the Swedes, them, do not forget. Since his departure from the “blues and yellows” team in June 2016, after 116 games and 62 goals, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has not missed an opportunity to attack his former colleagues and the new coach.
“The return of the god”
In a newspaper interview Expressen, in October 2019, he qualified the national team of “Sect” and accused Janne Andersson of not choosing players of foreign origin. “He destroys everything I have built in twenty years”, he said then. In September 2020, at the end of the match against France, lost a goal to zero, Zlatan Ibrahimovic puts on a layer in a killer tweet, where he plagues people “Incompetent” who “Stifle Swedish football”.
So, since March 16, we have been watching for signs. Is the striker ready to leave his oversized ego in the locker room and join a tight-knit team, which qualified without him for the Euro and managed to lead Sweden to the quarter-finals of the 2018 World Cup – a result never achieved with “Ibra”, even if he remains the greatest player in the history of Swedish football?
The very zlatanic message he posted on social media on March 16 did not surprise anyone: “The return of the god”, he proclaims, above a photo where he wears the yellow jersey stamped with the number 10. On Monday March 22, at a press conference, Zlatan Ibrahimovic revealed that Emil Forsberg had offered to return it to him, but that he asked to retrieve number 11, that of “New Zlatan”. He won’t be the team’s captain either – the armband is worn by defender Andreas Granqvist, who has since been injured.
Facing the media, Zlatan Ibrahimovic on Monday showed rare humility, acknowledging that he was “Not the same player as a few years ago” but that he could still ” give something “, and that he had been selected because he “Deserves it[ait] “. “I’m not here to do my own show”, he assured, repeating that he wanted “Help and contribute”. He paid tribute to the team and their manager and even shed a tear when he said his son, Vincent, cried when he left him in Milan to join Stockholm.
“The biggest risk-taking of his career”
Sports journalists do not shy away from their pleasure. In the pages of Dagens Nyheter, Johan Esk applauds his return: “On the one hand, because the coach must always try to have the best players in his team. And secondly, because there is no more delicious journalistic treat than seeing how Andersson will solve the effect of the “big comeback”. “
Others find that this return was inevitable. Because the Swede has always dreamed of victories with the blues and yellows and he had a “Revenge” to take. But it is also “The biggest risk-taking of his career”, according to the journalist ofAftonbladet, Johanna Fränden. Because, she writes, if Zlatan is “The best in Sweden”, not sure that the team is “Better with him” : “He knows that a failed Euro and an unworthy exit will blacken his legacy in the team. “
In his hometown, Malmö, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has things to be forgiven. In front of the Eleda stadium, his bronze statue, inaugurated with great pomp on October 8, 2019, has disappeared. Attacked with paint, hammer and Bengal lights, she had to be sent back to the sculptor’s workshop for repairs.
On November 27, 2019, Zlatan Ibrahimovic revealed that he was entering the capital of the Hammarby club, one of the sworn enemies of that of Malmö. The affront was already huge, but the footballer had the misfortune to add that Hammarby had “The potential to become the biggest club in Scandinavia”. So her return to the national team, Kristina Stridberg, a retired cross in central Malmö, thinks it’s ” a bad idea “. Her husband, Lars, takes the opposite view: “He’s our best player, obviously we have to use him. “ Tord, the quarantine, is, him, shared: “I think he should start on the sidelines, and prove himself. “
