From walking out with his footballing idol Ronaldo to pulling on the shirts of Barcelona, AC Milan, Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain, the great Zlatan Ibrahimovic has done it all - the bloke has even got his own statue.
In a career spanning 18 years, the Swedish international will be considered one of the very best forwards of his generation, but things could have been very different for the 36-year-old if it hadn't been for Johnny Gyllensjo.
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In a superb interview with The Manchester Evening News, it has emerged that Malmo youth coach Gyllensjo arguably saved Zlatan's career during a training session in 1996.
At the time, a 15-year-old Ibrahimovic was working on the docks of Malmo, working hard to earn a living while playing for the youth team. He had come to the conclusion that a job on the docks was more appealing.
Zlatan was drained of confidence, but a 90 minute conversation with Johnny Gyllensjo changed everything. It was a moment that will be overshadowed by his career achievements, but the voice of his youth coach persuaded him to continue playing the beautiful game.
Priceless.
In the interview, Gyllensio insisted that is was part of his job when Ibrahimovic was struggling to score goals for Malmo:
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"He was not so keen to play football anymore. As an amateur psychologist, I talked to him. I think he really liked to score some goals and he couldn't do it and this was a problem for him." he told The Manchester Evening News.
"We could talk to each other and we had great respect for each other, and he started to move on in Malmo and play in the team. And so we are glad that we have a little bit of an influence in his career."
Zlatan went onto help Malmo secure promotion to the Swedish first division before joining Ajax.
In an interview with SPORTbible last month, Ibrahimovic spoke to us ahead the launch of his new mobile game, and the 36-year-old claimed that throughout his career, the most talented player was Adriano during his time at Inter:
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"I mean I played with great champions. I played with players that already were 'WOW', I played with players that I saw were a talent and then became 'WOW', but the one I felt could do it longer, and he didn't do it, was Adriano when I was at Inter."
"When I came to Inter, the first thing I said to the president was, I demanded him to stay because he was the player I wanted to play with. Because, the way he was, he was an animal.
"He could shoot from every angle, nobody could tackle him, nobody could take the ball, he was a pure animal. But it lasted for a short time.
"I don't know why, like I said, 50% of everything you do is the mental part. If you don't have it in your head, it's difficult. In his case, I enjoyed playing with him, playing against him, but it's a shame that it lasted such a short time."
Zlatan should thank Johnny Gyllensjo for his incredible words of wisdom.
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We thank Johnny Gyllensjo for giving us Zlatan.
(H/T: The Manchester Evening News)
Topics: Ibrahimovic
