Zlatan Ibrahimovic: Jari Litmanen saved me!

February 23rd, 2010 | by: Jan |

Zlatan is 28 years old. Only 8 years ago, he was the umptiest failed striker at Ajax Amsterdam. Today, the Swede is a world class forward, who moved to Barcelona to write another chapter in what can only be called a glittering career.

zlatan beenhakker
Leo Beenhakker tries to trick Zlatan Ibrahimovic to play for Feyenoord….

During a press conference, the charming Zlatan works his magic. Gone is the arrogance and over-confident posture. He jokes, he is open about his feelings and ambitions and goes into detail about the upcoming Champions League match. But the old Zlatan, with eyes firing golden bullits, suddenly comes through when a female journalist from Sweden (!) asks him this: “Rumor has it that you and Lionel Messi have a very bad relationship. Is it hard to play together?” The silence in the press room is palpable. Zlatan is courtious but brisk: “Here’s a reporter from Sweden who wants to be famous. When you write about Zlatan, people read it. When you also write about Messi, more people read it. Throw in a bad relationship, and it’s a hype.” The Swedish lady isn’t startled. “So how does Messi feel about all this?” Zlatan shakes his head in disbelief : “We talked about it in the dressing room and had a laugh. We became even better mates since that rumor.”

The press conference is over and Zlatan whispers to his VI visitor: “Did you see that? Unbelievable. Dozens of media people from all over the world and Sweden sends a girl working for a tabloid.”

Sweden and Ibrahimovic, a difficult marriage. When VI scouted the player at Malmo, when Ajax had just signed him, we could tell what convinced the Amsterdam scouts. Here we saw a pure football player, scoring goals, with the technical skills of Vanenburg and the physical presence of a Swede. Ajax just signed a class player.

But the Swedish media were negative. “It’s a terrible boy. You can make appointments with him. He’s from the slumbs.” Zlatan remembers all that well. “What can I say, I was only 18 years old and suddenly a kid with status and lots of money. I’ve done silly things.”

But to Zlatan, this is all in the past. And not the reason why he doesn’t play for his country. “I think it’s an honor to play for Sweden, sure, but today they don’t play for anything. So why should I go there? It’s better for me to concentrate on my club.”

Ibrahimovic finally plays for the club of his dreams. When he made the move to Inter from Juventus, he told the Inter manager that he didn’t need to hear from clubs being interested in him. Unless…that club was Barcelona. Once in his life, he wanted to wear the Barca jersey.

And what a start he had. He scored in his first five games and was the match winner against Real Madrid. That means something in Barcelona. “I always try to adapt as quickly as possible, but in this case the whole group deserves a compliment. Coach Guardiola is a perfect coach, he talks to me a lot, explains things… And really, playing with players this good is actually easier. It’s easier for me to score than for the lone striker of the number 18 in the competition, you know? And it was a huge advantage for me to have played at Ajax. That’s always a mini Barca for me. There is more quality here, but the football philosophy is similar.”

Zlatan reminisces: “My first season in Amsterdam was crucial for my development. I felt so much pressure to perform well and to succeed that I started to try to do too much. I wanted to dribble past 3 opponents, give the cross and then score the goal myself. At Ajax I learned to be patient. To play for the team and only use a trick or something special when you had to… Because it didn’t work. I wanted to score the most beautiful goals and I felt the pressure of the transfer sum as well. And when you start doubting yourself, the fans sort of smell that and you lose support and that puts you in that downward spiral.” Zlatan would have loved to have had an understanding coach, like Guardiola. But Ibrahimovic had Co Adriaanse. “He was a good coach, but as a person he was cold and detached. He never spoke to me. He was my first coach outside of Sweden and he’d only mention me in the tactical talk after the game. You know, Zlatan, five good passes, three bad ones… 3.5 And that was it! I don’t get that, you know… He doesn’t need to ask about my dog’s health or something, but a bit humane would have been nice. I needed that. I’ve gone up to Leo Beenhakker, the technical director, and he was there for me. He was interested and positive. Beenhakker is a great guy, he really helped me.”

Zlatans’ first season at Ajax was a failure. He even negotiated with Wolverhampton Wanderers, playing the Championship. But he decided to give it one more go. “Ronald Koeman and Ruud Krol as coaches was much better. And Marco van Basten spent time with me. He was youth coach, but we did hang out together and talked. But my real saviour at Ajax, the man who saved my career, was Jari Litmanen. He was so good and committed and experienced. We had three good strikers: Machlas, Mido and myself. And Jari took you by the hand, on the field. He talked, coached, guided and basically made you better on the pitch. He allowed others to play better.”

jari

“Adriaanse is a good coach, but his way of working only goes so far. Look at his resume, apart from AZ he only works at clubs for one season and then they have enough. And he won prizes with Porto and Salzburg and yet, they don’t want him anymore. It’s to do with respect, I think. Capello taught me: respect is not something you get, it’s what you have to earn. And I think that’s Adriaanse’s issue. People lose respect in him.”

“I worked well with most of my coaches. Capello and Mourinho are very demanding and disciplined. Guardiola is more like a player. He’s one of us. Ronald Koeman was good. Good vibe, good training sessions, but… he was weird. With lunch, we couldn’t start until he had raised his spoon or fork and said: Smakelijk Eten. That to me goes to far. It has nothing to do with football. ”

Ibrahimovic needed to be transformed to succeed in Italy. “In Holland, people applauded you if you had a good trick in the match. In Italy, they don’t care. You’re a striker, you have to score. Period. When Capello worked with me, he basically instructed me to constantly train on goal attempts. From every angle, every ball, every situation, bam bam bam bam, ball on goal. Then he asked me: who do you think has the best kicking technique at Juve? I said…hmm….Del Piero or Nedved? He said: the keepers trainer. And that’s because that guy hits the ball maybe 1000 times a day, day in day out.”

“At Ajax, we only trained as a team, never individually. It was new for me and I needed it. After a while, the assistant coach said: Capello wants to see you in his office. I thought I had done something wrong. I come in, there’s Capello with a tv and vcr. And he sits me down and says: You remind me of Van Basten. You could do better than him, even. But first, you have to watch how Van Basten moved in the box. Look how he releases himself and creates space at the right time and scores. Capello left the room and said: sit down and watch. I sat there for 30 minutes or so….”

Ibrahimovic explains something yours truly already outlined before on our site. “Everyone in Holland thinks that Barca is a bunch of good players who go out onto the pitch and simply improvise. No tasks, no instructions, basically..trying to play ball nicely and score goals. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We work extremely hard, in particular without the ball. We have the task to repossess the ball within three seconds. Guardiola is totally explicit. If a player of the opponent gets the ball, we immediately circle in, like a pack of wolves. The whole team tightens up and puts pressure. The moment we lose the ball is effectively the best moment to repossess it, because the opponent’s team is not placed well. They’ve been hunting us and in that turn around time, is our chance to overwhelm them. And we train this endlessly.”

Ibrahimovic might come across as arrogant, but he most certainly doesn’t see himself as a great player. “A great player… No, that’s not me. I’m a good goal scorer. A good striker. Bt, I have had games in which I was totally invisible. And still scored. That’s what I do, but great players will never do that. They carry the team, they allow others to play better and make the team better. Someone like Zidane, Bergkamp or Jari Litmanen.”
zlatan

Netherlands World Cup Blog RSS Feed

Comments

Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 102 comments.

Read the rest of the comments

By susanne | February 25th, 2010 at 5:25 pm

I didn’t see the Ajax game, but I think PSV deserved more. Alas, they’re all out. At least there is not a green away shirt!

Posted from Netherlands

By miguel rosado | February 25th, 2010 at 5:38 pm

In my humble opinion Mourinho is a great coach. He has won titles in I think every club he’s coached. He has an eye for the star players just like he did with Sneijder and also with Robben because when Arjen played with Chelsea even with so many injuries every time he got back he was introduced in the starting line up. Although I agree this Inter plays like crap haha!!.

By miguel rosado | February 25th, 2010 at 5:43 pm

Babel is back!?!?!?!?

I hope so because I’ve always thought he has the skills to be a STAR but he has lacked mental stength or as I’d say balls!!!.

How’s Robben is he badly injured? please tell me he’s not.

PSV lost but at least they lost to an almost Dutch club hehe (Ruud, Joris and Elia) it’ll be exciting to see how far they go in the tournament.

By Keko | February 25th, 2010 at 6:39 pm

Don´t worry, Arjen is ok. Where do yo hear that, Miguel?

By Jan | February 25th, 2010 at 7:20 pm

Mourinho didn’t sign Robben though. Ranieri did.

Jeff, what an interesting view on Dutch football you have . I was totally appalled by Ajax. I was embarrassed even watching it. Alone.

And Twente out, PSV out, I felt really bad. I was actually planning on writing a piece on the dire state of Dutch football…

Sorry…

By van den Berg | February 25th, 2010 at 7:47 pm

Watched the ajax game. Yikes. The last time I actually watched one was four years ago, I think in a Champions League game vrs Inter, The Hunter scored a goal.(Not many Ajax games shown in Canada). So, I was looking forward to this game. I even put my Ajax jersey on. Terrible. I knew the level in holland is dropping, and ajax haven’t been a “powerhouse” in years, but man. Is Jol part of the problem? Why didn’t Urby start? Why is Pantelic playing?

By Jason | February 25th, 2010 at 9:16 pm

In my opinion, Ajax played well from start to finish. It was difficult because they had to attack and be weary of the counter because that was clearly what Juve wanted to do. Italian club teams know how to win, Ajax is far too young to expect miracles. Part of the problem is that they don’t believe they can compete. They have to realize that they are a very competitive team and that they have to keep some players with experience. If the defence played in Amsterdam they way they did in Turin, we would have easily won this won. We gave Amauri 2 free headers in the box and our defence’s feet didn’t leave the ground!

Posted from Canada

By Steve | February 25th, 2010 at 9:52 pm

Sol, again. my thoughts exactly on favorite clubs, though i could never watch enough Ajax where i am in Canada to claim to be as much of a fan as those other clubs.

listening to an Arsenal blog,
Arsenal pre-RVP injury goals per game – 3.2
Arsenal post-RVP injury goals per game – 1.6
hmmmm.
also:
http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8689_5980760,00.html
is he training in holland?? does anyone know?

does anyone know or have watched marcus haber? played for a bit at Groningen for reserves then came back here to Vancouver last year and now has moved to West Brom. only watched him 4 or 5 times, he didnt seem too great to me but he won top rookie last season here. be interested to hear if he did well at all in Groningen.

anyways, i am home from work. time to watch this Ajax Juve match.
peace

By Jeff | February 25th, 2010 at 10:10 pm

Sorry Jan and VD Berg, but I respectfully disagree. First of all, the 3 Dutch teams played against tough opposition (may have been different against Bilbao, Galatasaray or Lille…), second PSV deserved a lot more and gave the impression that they would score almost every time they had the ball (were it not for the red card I really think they would have won), and finally Ajax completely outplayed Juve. Imagine if Suarez had played. If you guys think the eredivisie is bad then what about the Italian League? Except for Inter and AC Milan, the Italian League is not much better than the Eredivisie. Case in point Roma lost at home against who? Panathaikos. Keep in mind that the means of the Italian Clubs (which by the way are all in massive deficits) cannot be compared with those of the Dutch clubs.
I agree with you that the Dutch League is not what it once was but it is becoming more and more difficult to compete at the highest level when the financial gap is growing every year. Can you imagine if Ajax loses VD Wiel, Suarez and even Ericksen or PSV Affelay, Pieters and Dzuzak? That is the problem. Foreign teams do their shopping with impunity in Holland. Is that fair?

Posted from United States

By alaa | February 25th, 2010 at 10:11 pm

did van marwijk announce the final squad list or is he still on the 25 players list?

By Tiju | February 25th, 2010 at 10:57 pm

@Jan i really missed some comments..of this post ,Plz do something for reading those comments…..

Posted from India

By sonneveld | February 25th, 2010 at 11:06 pm

I would like the shed some light on this “how poor is the Eredivisie”. I think that some of the older fans of Ajax still remember the golden days and consider the current generation a complete failure. Newer fans like myself never have seen Eredivisie at the top of Europe so don’t expect much.

I saw PSV compete very well against a strong HSV (near the top of Germany) Ajax reasonable in a 0-0 tie away at Juventus who are near top in Italy without their best player by far. And Twente close to a near top in Germany aswell. Puzzled about the lack of Emanueslon in the starting line-up for Ajax.

I havent heard any trimmings to the Oranje list.

By sonneveld | February 25th, 2010 at 11:33 pm

Borriello: 158.75 minutes per goal.
Messi: 98 minutes per goal.
C. Ronaldo: 94 minutes per goal.
Rooney: 100 minutes per goal.
Drogba: 102 minutes per goal.

Huntelaar: 97.83 minutes per goal
I know it has been posted already but just reinforcing, imagine if he took free kicks.

By Tiju | February 25th, 2010 at 11:42 pm

@sonne you must show kuyts minutes per goal also .coz critiano and messi are right wingers…Most of the time torres was injured and in fact kuyt was the striker for liverpool.

Posted from India

By Tiju | February 25th, 2010 at 11:57 pm

Ohh soonie i my self found it
Kuyt stati
This Season League Appearances 27
This Season League Goals 9
Minutes Played 2340
ie 260 minutes per goal.
That to in a liverpool team with a strong backing of Coach..how it sounds?
Yellow Cards 3

Posted from India

By fares | February 26th, 2010 at 1:36 am

now that edwin is not here i do think that piet velthuizen is the best goalkeeper for holland , he has been in outstanding form these weeks (and was superb against ajax despite conceding four goals); he must be number one. btw his contract expires in june 2011,no? so he should be moving this summer, arsenal would be a great club. they were interested in him in the past and still don’t have world class goalkeeper…

By Tiju | February 26th, 2010 at 2:00 am

Fares true about velthuizen…but BVM is the man he will pick stekelenburg only.Steke is not bad either but he has to work with his diffenders, then he will become world class goal keeper.he should work on crosses,i mean he should read the crosses and should try to block that at the earliest.
BVM is a solid man no matter how old and slow Ooiger is,no matter how slow gio is,no matter how impotent kuyt is,he will pick all of them over inform and talented players.that’s how we are going to loose a champion ship this time.

Posted from India

By miguel rosado | February 26th, 2010 at 3:17 am

On Sunday Bayern vs Hamburg!!!

By goose | February 26th, 2010 at 3:56 am

First time since 1984-85 season that theres no dutch team in Europe who reach the last 16

PSV could have won but they didnt play mature enough, Ajax and Twente just werent good enough

its not that bad for Twente since they can now concentrate on De Erdedivisie

Posted from Netherlands

By Caleb | February 26th, 2010 at 4:13 am

Castelen in the Dutch squad:

10 games, 579 minutes, 1 goal. i.e. 579 minutes per goal. That’s more than twice as many minutes/goal as Kuyt.

Posted from Japan

By ferenc | February 26th, 2010 at 4:15 am

galataseray – frank rijkaard’s team – were eliminated too… (in the last minute by atletico madrid). i consider the dutch clubs have a disastrous season in the different european cups. dutch clubfootball is pretty bad at the moment and has no interest for a foreigner (like me) – i’m not interested at all in hungaria clubfootball even don’t know who’s the champion. unfortunately dutch clubfootball tends to be similar.

this is the main reason i write now less than before. this time of the year is typically about club football,champions’league,the world cup will be in june/july,so no i’m not too much interested in friendlies,potential line ups etc. in may it will be totally different.

i came back one week ago,and don’t enjoy to be in europe again. bad weather,no sun,everything is dark and back to work…

Posted from Hungary

By fares | February 26th, 2010 at 4:49 am

‘Don’t expect Van Persie back in early April’(arsenal.com)

Arsène Wenger has played down reports that Robin Van Persie could return to action in early April.

The Dutch forward has been out since November after suffering ankle ligament damage during an international friendly against Italy.

Wenger predicted last week that Van Persie may be back in an Arsenal shirt by the end of April but only if his recovery goes to plan. However, in the interim the Dutch FA have tipped the 26-year-old for an earlier comeback.

At his pre-match press conference on Thursday, Wenger poured cold water on those optimistic claims.

“No, I would love to agree but I believe they [the Dutch FA] are a bit optimistic in that,” said the manager.

“I haven’t seen Robin because he is in Holland at the moment but [early April] looks to be a bit early.”

By fares | February 26th, 2010 at 4:53 am

Wenger unsure on Van Persie (skysports)
French boss does not agree with Van Marwijk’s diagnosis

Last updated: 26th February 2010

Wenger unsure on Van Persie

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger believes Holland coach Bert van Marwijk is being too optimistic regarding Robin van Persie’s injury.

Dutch coach Van Marwijk has claimed the Gunners striker could recover from his ankle surgery by the beginning of April, having been out since November.

With the World Cup looming large in the summer, Van Marwijk’s eagerness to have Van Persie back in action is understandable.

The 26-year-old was in potent form for Arsenal before suffering the injury on international duty, and a Dutch challenge for the biggest prize in football could depend on how quickly he finds his feet.

However, Wenger says a return in early April is slightly hopeful. “I would love to agree with him (Van Marwijk),” he remarked.

“But no, I believe he is a bit optimistic thinking that.

“I haven’t seen Robin because he is in Holland at the moment but that looks too early to me.”

Arsenal have lacked a real goal-threat up front during Van Persie’s absence, although Nicklas Bendtner has recently come back to the fold.

By goose | February 26th, 2010 at 5:02 am

welcome back ferenc; hope you had a good one

just a few more weeks and the sun is gonna shine and there will be more international football for us to enjoy!

Posted from Netherlands

By evision | March 27th, 2010 at 6:58 am

ww.onilneuniversalwork.com

Comments are closed