The game 161
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Good talent but lazy.
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Ibrahimovic's Row With Guardiola
- Thread starter The Fat el Hombre
- Start date
carlos tevez is a blue
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 25 Nov 2010
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<a class="postlink" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2412691/Zlatan-Ibrahimovic-Id-die-Jose-Mourinho-Pep-Guardiola-coward.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... oward.html</a>
Jose Mourinho is a big star. He’d been my manager at Inter. He’s nice. The first time he met my partner Helena, he whispered to her: ‘Helena, you have only one mission: feed Zlatan, let him sleep, keep him happy.’ That guy says whatever he wants. I like him. He’s the leader of his army. But he cares, too. He would text me all the time at Inter, wondering how I was doing. He’s the exact opposite of Pep Guardiola.
If Mourinho lights up a room, Guardiola draws the curtains. I guessed that Guardiola was trying to match up to him.
Mourinho would become a guy I was basically willing to die for.
Already during the 2008 European Championship I was told that Mourinho, my new manager at Inter Milan, was going to phone me, and I thought: ‘Has something happened?’
He just wanted to say: ‘It’ll be nice to work together, looking forward to meeting you’ — nothing remarkable, but he was speaking in Italian. I didn’t get it. Mourinho had never coached an Italian club. But he spoke the language better than me! He’d learned the language in three weeks, I couldn’t keep up. We switched to English, and then I could sense it: this guy cares. After the match against Spain I got a text message.
‘Well played,’ he wrote, and then gave me some advice and I stopped in my tracks. I’d never had that before. A text message from the coach! I’d been playing with the Swedish squad, which was nothing to do with him. Still, he got involved. I felt appreciated.
Sure, I understood he was sending those texts for a reason. He wanted my loyalty, but I liked him straight away. He works twice as hard as all the rest. Lives and breathes football 24/7. I’ve never met a manager with that kind of knowledge about the opposing sides. It was everything, right down to the third-choice goalkeeper’s shoe size.
It was a while before I met him. He’s elegant, he’s confident, but I was surprised. He looked small next to the players but I sensed it immediately: there was this vibe around him.
He got people to toe the line, and he went up to guys who thought they were untouchable and let them have it. He stood there, only coming up to their shoulder, and didn’t try to suck up to them. He got straight to the point: ‘From now on, you do it like this.’ Can you imagine! And everybody started to listen. They strained to take in every shade of meaning in what he was saying. Not that they were frightened of him. He was no Fabio Capello, who was a demon manager.
Mourinho created personal ties with the players with his text messages and his knowledge of our situations with wives and children, and he didn’t shout
He built us up before matches. It was like theatre, a psychological game. He might show videos where we’d played badly and say: ‘So miserable! Hopeless! Those guys can’t be you. They must be your brothers, your inferior selves,’ and we nodded. We were ashamed.
‘I don’t want to see you like that today,’ he would continue. ‘No way,’ we thought. ‘Go out there like hungry lions,’ he added.
‘In the first battle you’ll be like this . . . ’ He pounded his fist against the palm of his open hand. ‘And in the second battle . . . ’
He gave the flip chart a kick and sent it flying across the room, and the adrenaline pumped inside us, and we went out like rabid animals. I felt increasingly that this guy gives everything for the team, so I want to give everything for him. People were willing to kill for him.
There was one thing that really bothered me: no matter what I did, there was never any hint of a smile.
I was doing totally amazing things, but Mourinho had a face like a wet weekend. One time we were playing Bologna and I scored a goal that was absolutely insane. It was later voted goal of the year. Mourinho stood there stony-faced.
What the hell is it with that man? I thought. If he doesn’t react to a thing like that, what does get him going? One way or another, I was going to make that man cheer. It happened, but only once we had won three titles and I was top goalscorer.
Mourinho, the man with the face of stone, the man who never batted an eyelid, had woken up. He was like a madman. He was cheering like a schoolboy, jumping up and down, and I smiled: ‘So I got you going, after all. But it took some doing.’
Guardiola looked at me as if it was all my fault and I thought: ‘That’s it. I’ve played my last card.’ After that match, it felt like I was no longer welcome at the club. I felt like **** when I sat in the locker room, and Guardiola glared at me as if I was a disturbance, an alien. It was mental.
He was a brick wall. I didn’t see any signs of life from him, and every hour with the club I wished I could be out of there. I didn’t belong any more, and when we had an away match with Villarreal, he let me play for five minutes. I was seething inside, not because I was on the bench. I can deal with that, if the manager is man enough to say: ‘You’re not good enough, Zlatan. You haven’t made the grade.’
Guardiola didn’t say a word, not a peep, and now I’d had enough. I could feel it in my whole body, and if I’d been Guardiola, I would’ve been scared. Not that I’m saying I’m handy with my fists! I’ve done all kinds of ****. I don’t get into punch-ups, though. All right, on the pitch I guess I’ve headbutted a few people. When I get angry, the red mist descends. You don’t want to be nearby.
I went into the locker room after the match and I hadn’t exactly planned any frenzied attack. But I was not happy, to put it mildly, and now my enemy was standing there, scratching his head.
Yaya Toure was there, and a few others, and then there was the metal box where we put our kit from the match, and I was staring at that box. Then I gave it a kick. I think it went flying about three metres, but I wasn’t finished yet. Not by a long chalk. I yelled, ‘You haven’t got any balls!’ and worse than that I added, ‘You’re ******** yourself in front of Mourinho. 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 just picked up the metal box, like a little caretaker, and then left, never to mention it again, not a word.
There was just silence and mind games, and I thought, I’m 28 years old. I’ve scored 22 goals and 15 assists here at Barca alone, and I’m still being treated like I don’t exist. Should I sit back and take it? Should I carry on trying to adapt? No way!
Oh, I had tried. When I came to Barcelona, they told me I could not take a private jet and had to take a commercial flight. ‘At Barcelona we keep our feet on the ground,’ they explained. ‘We are not like Real Madrid. We travel on regular planes.’ It sounded reasonable.
There were other things. ‘Listen,’ Guardiola said. ‘We don’t turn up to training sessions in Ferraris or Porsches.’ I nodded, didn’t go off on one and say things like: ‘What the hell business is it of yours what cars I drive?’ At the same time, though, I was thinking: ‘What kind of message is he sending here?’
I do love cars. They’re my passion, and I could sense something else behind what he was saying. It was like: ‘Don’t think you’re anybody special!’
I’d already got the impression that Barcelona was a little like being back at Ajax, it was like being back at school. None of the lads acted like superstars, which was strange. Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, the whole gang — they were like schoolboys. The best footballers in the world stood there with their heads bowed, and I didn’t understand any of it. It was ridiculous.
Everyone did as they were told. I didn’t fit in, not at all. I thought, just enjoy the opportunity, don’t confirm their prejudices. So I started to adapt and blend in. I became way too nice. It was mental.
I said what I thought people wanted me to say. It was completely messed up. I drove the club’s Audi and stood there and nodded my head. I hardly even yelled at my team-mates any more. I was boring. Zlatan was no longer Zlatan.
Then Messi started saying things. Lionel Messi is awesome. He’s totally amazing, but he told Guardiola: ‘I don’t want to be on the right wing any more. I want to play in the centre.’ I was the striker. Guardiola didn’t give a damn about that, though.
Guardiola sacrificed me. That’s the truth. One of my mates told me: ‘Zlatan, it’s as if Barca had bought a Ferrari and was driving it like a Fiat,’ and I thought: ‘Yeah, that’s a good way of looking at it.’ Guardiola had turned me into a simpler player and a worse player. It was a loss for the whole team.
He wouldn’t even say good morning. Not a single word. He avoided eye contact with me. If I went into a room, he would leave. ‘What’s going on,’ I thought. ‘Is it something I did? Do I look wrong? Am I talking funny?’ All these things were buzzing around in my head. I couldn’t sleep.
I was thinking about it constantly. Not because I needed Guardiola’s love, exactly. He could hate me, as far as I was concerned. Hatred and revenge get me going. Now, though, I lost my focus.
He thought he could change me. At his Barça, everybody should be like Xavi, Iniesta and Messi. Nothing wrong with them, like I said, absolutely nothing at all. It was terrific being in the same team as them. Good players get me fired up.
But I came with my whole personality, and there didn’t seem to be space for that, not in Guardiola’s little world.
When I realised I would be on the bench for a game against Almeria, I remembered that line: ‘Here in Barcelona we don’t turn up to training sessions in Porsches or Ferraris.’ What kind of nonsense was that, anyway? I’ll take whatever car I want, at least if I can wind up idiots. I jumped in my Enzo [Ferrari], put my foot down on the gas and parked up right in front of the door to the training facility.
I’d decided to start to fight my corner, and you should know that that’s a game I know how to play. I’d been a fighter before, believe me. I couldn’t neglect my preparations, though, and so I talked it over with my agent. We always plan our tricks together, both the smart ones and the dirty ones. And I rang round my mates.
I wanted to see things from different perspectives and, my God, I got every kind of advice.
The Rosengard lads (from my home town) wanted to come down and smash the place up, and of course that was nice of them, but it didn’t really seem like the right strategy under the circumstances.
At night, though, when I lay awake, or in training sessions when I saw Guardiola, my dark side woke up. The rage just throbbed in my head.
Because of Guardiola’s problem, the club were forced to do a disastrous deal to sell me — it was crazy. I’d scored 22 goals and 15 assists during my season at Barcelona. Yet I’d lost nearly 70 per cent of my value. Whose fault was that? Guardiola, the quiet little over-thinker, had tried to wreck me.
HOW I NEARLY JOINED MAN CITY
When I was forced to leave Barcelona by Pep Guardiola in 2011, sure I knew all about the incredible things that had happened at Manchester City and all the money that seemed to be there since the crew from the UAE had taken over.
City could surely become big within a few years. But I’d soon turn 29. I didn’t have time for long-term plans and money was never a big thing. I wanted to go to a club that could be good now and there was no club with a history like AC Milan.
Jose Mourinho is a big star. He’d been my manager at Inter. He’s nice. The first time he met my partner Helena, he whispered to her: ‘Helena, you have only one mission: feed Zlatan, let him sleep, keep him happy.’ That guy says whatever he wants. I like him. He’s the leader of his army. But he cares, too. He would text me all the time at Inter, wondering how I was doing. He’s the exact opposite of Pep Guardiola.
If Mourinho lights up a room, Guardiola draws the curtains. I guessed that Guardiola was trying to match up to him.
Mourinho would become a guy I was basically willing to die for.
Already during the 2008 European Championship I was told that Mourinho, my new manager at Inter Milan, was going to phone me, and I thought: ‘Has something happened?’
He just wanted to say: ‘It’ll be nice to work together, looking forward to meeting you’ — nothing remarkable, but he was speaking in Italian. I didn’t get it. Mourinho had never coached an Italian club. But he spoke the language better than me! He’d learned the language in three weeks, I couldn’t keep up. We switched to English, and then I could sense it: this guy cares. After the match against Spain I got a text message.
‘Well played,’ he wrote, and then gave me some advice and I stopped in my tracks. I’d never had that before. A text message from the coach! I’d been playing with the Swedish squad, which was nothing to do with him. Still, he got involved. I felt appreciated.
Sure, I understood he was sending those texts for a reason. He wanted my loyalty, but I liked him straight away. He works twice as hard as all the rest. Lives and breathes football 24/7. I’ve never met a manager with that kind of knowledge about the opposing sides. It was everything, right down to the third-choice goalkeeper’s shoe size.
It was a while before I met him. He’s elegant, he’s confident, but I was surprised. He looked small next to the players but I sensed it immediately: there was this vibe around him.
He got people to toe the line, and he went up to guys who thought they were untouchable and let them have it. He stood there, only coming up to their shoulder, and didn’t try to suck up to them. He got straight to the point: ‘From now on, you do it like this.’ Can you imagine! And everybody started to listen. They strained to take in every shade of meaning in what he was saying. Not that they were frightened of him. He was no Fabio Capello, who was a demon manager.
Mourinho created personal ties with the players with his text messages and his knowledge of our situations with wives and children, and he didn’t shout
He built us up before matches. It was like theatre, a psychological game. He might show videos where we’d played badly and say: ‘So miserable! Hopeless! Those guys can’t be you. They must be your brothers, your inferior selves,’ and we nodded. We were ashamed.
‘I don’t want to see you like that today,’ he would continue. ‘No way,’ we thought. ‘Go out there like hungry lions,’ he added.
‘In the first battle you’ll be like this . . . ’ He pounded his fist against the palm of his open hand. ‘And in the second battle . . . ’
He gave the flip chart a kick and sent it flying across the room, and the adrenaline pumped inside us, and we went out like rabid animals. I felt increasingly that this guy gives everything for the team, so I want to give everything for him. People were willing to kill for him.
There was one thing that really bothered me: no matter what I did, there was never any hint of a smile.
I was doing totally amazing things, but Mourinho had a face like a wet weekend. One time we were playing Bologna and I scored a goal that was absolutely insane. It was later voted goal of the year. Mourinho stood there stony-faced.
What the hell is it with that man? I thought. If he doesn’t react to a thing like that, what does get him going? One way or another, I was going to make that man cheer. It happened, but only once we had won three titles and I was top goalscorer.
Mourinho, the man with the face of stone, the man who never batted an eyelid, had woken up. He was like a madman. He was cheering like a schoolboy, jumping up and down, and I smiled: ‘So I got you going, after all. But it took some doing.’
Guardiola looked at me as if it was all my fault and I thought: ‘That’s it. I’ve played my last card.’ After that match, it felt like I was no longer welcome at the club. I felt like **** when I sat in the locker room, and Guardiola glared at me as if I was a disturbance, an alien. It was mental.
He was a brick wall. I didn’t see any signs of life from him, and every hour with the club I wished I could be out of there. I didn’t belong any more, and when we had an away match with Villarreal, he let me play for five minutes. I was seething inside, not because I was on the bench. I can deal with that, if the manager is man enough to say: ‘You’re not good enough, Zlatan. You haven’t made the grade.’
Guardiola didn’t say a word, not a peep, and now I’d had enough. I could feel it in my whole body, and if I’d been Guardiola, I would’ve been scared. Not that I’m saying I’m handy with my fists! I’ve done all kinds of ****. I don’t get into punch-ups, though. All right, on the pitch I guess I’ve headbutted a few people. When I get angry, the red mist descends. You don’t want to be nearby.
I went into the locker room after the match and I hadn’t exactly planned any frenzied attack. But I was not happy, to put it mildly, and now my enemy was standing there, scratching his head.
Yaya Toure was there, and a few others, and then there was the metal box where we put our kit from the match, and I was staring at that box. Then I gave it a kick. I think it went flying about three metres, but I wasn’t finished yet. Not by a long chalk. I yelled, ‘You haven’t got any balls!’ and worse than that I added, ‘You’re ******** yourself in front of Mourinho. 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 just picked up the metal box, like a little caretaker, and then left, never to mention it again, not a word.
There was just silence and mind games, and I thought, I’m 28 years old. I’ve scored 22 goals and 15 assists here at Barca alone, and I’m still being treated like I don’t exist. Should I sit back and take it? Should I carry on trying to adapt? No way!
Oh, I had tried. When I came to Barcelona, they told me I could not take a private jet and had to take a commercial flight. ‘At Barcelona we keep our feet on the ground,’ they explained. ‘We are not like Real Madrid. We travel on regular planes.’ It sounded reasonable.
There were other things. ‘Listen,’ Guardiola said. ‘We don’t turn up to training sessions in Ferraris or Porsches.’ I nodded, didn’t go off on one and say things like: ‘What the hell business is it of yours what cars I drive?’ At the same time, though, I was thinking: ‘What kind of message is he sending here?’
I do love cars. They’re my passion, and I could sense something else behind what he was saying. It was like: ‘Don’t think you’re anybody special!’
I’d already got the impression that Barcelona was a little like being back at Ajax, it was like being back at school. None of the lads acted like superstars, which was strange. Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, the whole gang — they were like schoolboys. The best footballers in the world stood there with their heads bowed, and I didn’t understand any of it. It was ridiculous.
Everyone did as they were told. I didn’t fit in, not at all. I thought, just enjoy the opportunity, don’t confirm their prejudices. So I started to adapt and blend in. I became way too nice. It was mental.
I said what I thought people wanted me to say. It was completely messed up. I drove the club’s Audi and stood there and nodded my head. I hardly even yelled at my team-mates any more. I was boring. Zlatan was no longer Zlatan.
Then Messi started saying things. Lionel Messi is awesome. He’s totally amazing, but he told Guardiola: ‘I don’t want to be on the right wing any more. I want to play in the centre.’ I was the striker. Guardiola didn’t give a damn about that, though.
Guardiola sacrificed me. That’s the truth. One of my mates told me: ‘Zlatan, it’s as if Barca had bought a Ferrari and was driving it like a Fiat,’ and I thought: ‘Yeah, that’s a good way of looking at it.’ Guardiola had turned me into a simpler player and a worse player. It was a loss for the whole team.
He wouldn’t even say good morning. Not a single word. He avoided eye contact with me. If I went into a room, he would leave. ‘What’s going on,’ I thought. ‘Is it something I did? Do I look wrong? Am I talking funny?’ All these things were buzzing around in my head. I couldn’t sleep.
I was thinking about it constantly. Not because I needed Guardiola’s love, exactly. He could hate me, as far as I was concerned. Hatred and revenge get me going. Now, though, I lost my focus.
He thought he could change me. At his Barça, everybody should be like Xavi, Iniesta and Messi. Nothing wrong with them, like I said, absolutely nothing at all. It was terrific being in the same team as them. Good players get me fired up.
But I came with my whole personality, and there didn’t seem to be space for that, not in Guardiola’s little world.
When I realised I would be on the bench for a game against Almeria, I remembered that line: ‘Here in Barcelona we don’t turn up to training sessions in Porsches or Ferraris.’ What kind of nonsense was that, anyway? I’ll take whatever car I want, at least if I can wind up idiots. I jumped in my Enzo [Ferrari], put my foot down on the gas and parked up right in front of the door to the training facility.
I’d decided to start to fight my corner, and you should know that that’s a game I know how to play. I’d been a fighter before, believe me. I couldn’t neglect my preparations, though, and so I talked it over with my agent. We always plan our tricks together, both the smart ones and the dirty ones. And I rang round my mates.
I wanted to see things from different perspectives and, my God, I got every kind of advice.
The Rosengard lads (from my home town) wanted to come down and smash the place up, and of course that was nice of them, but it didn’t really seem like the right strategy under the circumstances.
At night, though, when I lay awake, or in training sessions when I saw Guardiola, my dark side woke up. The rage just throbbed in my head.
Because of Guardiola’s problem, the club were forced to do a disastrous deal to sell me — it was crazy. I’d scored 22 goals and 15 assists during my season at Barcelona. Yet I’d lost nearly 70 per cent of my value. Whose fault was that? Guardiola, the quiet little over-thinker, had tried to wreck me.
HOW I NEARLY JOINED MAN CITY
When I was forced to leave Barcelona by Pep Guardiola in 2011, sure I knew all about the incredible things that had happened at Manchester City and all the money that seemed to be there since the crew from the UAE had taken over.
City could surely become big within a few years. But I’d soon turn 29. I didn’t have time for long-term plans and money was never a big thing. I wanted to go to a club that could be good now and there was no club with a history like AC Milan.
The Rosengard lads (from my home town) wanted to come down and smash the place up, and of course that was nice of them, but it didn’t really seem like the right strategy under the circumstances.
Brilliant.
TCIB
Well-Known Member
He is a self absorbed prick.
Fuck off whining big nose,
Asked to drive a different car to work and you can't handle that ? just fuck off.
I would love to see him lose his rag with the wrong player and get knocked out cold.
Fuck off whining big nose,
Asked to drive a different car to work and you can't handle that ? just fuck off.
I would love to see him lose his rag with the wrong player and get knocked out cold.
BlueMo'
Well-Known Member
TonyM said:Gaurdiola just went up in my expectations. To pick up the box without a word and leave was genius.
Wow, Zlatan is such a hard man. A lot of people should be scared.
If the story is correct and Guardiola stopped communicating then i'd suggest he's the pussy.
That's the worst type of workplace bullying, the silence, the exclusion. instead of having the balls to say it how it was.
Ibrahimovic is a winner and i'd have loved to see him at City.
peoffrey
Well-Known Member
He's played for 7 Clubs for a reason. He leaves Clubs under a cloud and would be the kind of player to divide Blues like no other. He's a big fish in a small pond at PSG which is how he'll like it. No room for that mentality here.