Swedish football star Zlatan Ibrahimovic announced his retirement from the sport on Sunday in an emotional farewell at San Siro, the home of his final club, AC Milan.
While the 41-year-old made 122 appearances for the national side during which he scored 62 goals, he also played club football for Malmo, Ajax, Juventus, Inter Milan, Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester United, LA Galaxy before ending his career at AC Milan, where he had also played earlier.
As popular as Ibrahimovic was for his performances on the ground, he also made headlines for his one-liners and the stories behind them.
Here are a few of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s most popular quotes and their backgrounds:
“Zlatan doesn’t do auditions”
While Ibrahimovic played for Manchester United as an established star in 2016, he could have very well played for another Premier League club when he was a youngster.
In 2000, a 17-year-old old Ibrahimovic was in talks for a potential contract at Arsenal and met the then manager Arsene Wenger. However, when the London club’s boss asked him to give a trial to check his skills, he refused.
“I went to London for an appointment with Wenger, who asked me to audition for the Gunners,” Ibrahimovic told Sky Sport Italia. “I told him ‘I will not do a trial: either you take me or not, I’m not here to waste time’.
“I already had that kind of trust [in myself], because in my mind I was the strongest of all even when I was young. I met Wenger because I expected him to tell me to start with them right away. But Ibra does not test.
Ibrahimovic ended up joining Ajax.
“I won’t be the King of Manchester, I will be the God of Manchester”
Ibrahimovic joined Manchester United as a free agent in the summer of 2016 and was given the No. 9 jersey.
When the Swede joined the Premier League club, Eric Cantona, a club legend who scored 143 goals in 64 appearances, said Ibrahimovic would be the Prince of Manchester. Frenchman Cantona is affectionately nicknamed by the team’s fans as “King Eric.”
However, Ibrahimovic’s response to that statement was - “I won’t be the King of Manchester, I will be the God of Manchester.”
“When you buy me, you are buying a Ferrari. If you drive a Ferrari you put premium petrol in the tank, you hit the motorway and you step on the gas. [Pep] Guardiola filled up with diesel and took a spin in the countryside. He should have bought a Fiat”
FILE PHOTO: Zlatan Ibrahimovic during the Joan Gamper Trophy match between Barcelona and AC Milan at Camp Nou Stadium on August 25, 2010 in Barcelona, Spain. | Photo Credit: GETTY IMAGES
Ibrahimovic played only one season (2009-10) for the Spanish giants FC Barcelona under manager Pep Guardiola despite joining on a five-year-contract from Inter Milan in a deal worth £57m which also involved a swap with Samuel Eto’o.
The Swede scored 11 goals in his first 14 games for Barca but his was a tensed relationship with Guardiola.
During that campaign, Barcelona lost to Ibrahimovic’s former club Inter in the UEFA Champions League semifinals. As per his autobiography, ‘I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic’, after the defeat, Ibrahimovic confronted Guardiola in the dressing room and said, “Guardiola was staring at me and I lost it. I thought, ‘there is my enemy, scratching his bald head!’ I yelled: ‘You haven’t got any b***s!’ and worse than that I added: ‘You can go to hell!’ I completely lost it, and you might have expected Guardiola to say a few words in response, but he’s a spineless coward.”
He made the Fiat-Ferrari reference saying that at the club, the players weren’t allowed to come to training in their sports cars which was ridiculous.
“I came like a king, left like a legend”
This is how Ibrahimovic described his tenure at Paris Saint-Germain on Twitter before playing his final game for the Ligue 1 club in 2016.
Ibrahimovic played for PSG from 2012 to 2016 during which he scored 122 goals in 113 matches.
“Keep booing. This is the biggest moment in your year seeing me”
While it was an emotional farewell for Ibrahimovic and most of the football world at the San Siro on Sunday, there were some travelling Hellas Verona fans who started booing the Swede.
In his typical savage style, Ibrahimovic trolled those fans saying, ”Keep booing. This is the biggest moment in your year seeing me.”
Here are some more famous quotes from Ibrahimovic:-
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