Zlatan – our shining beacon
Posted by anthony040 on July 28, 2009
It’s not easy being a kid from Malmö. Far too many people associate Malmö with either a video from FOX News describing the city as “conquered by Islamofascists”, or Fundamentalist “preacher” Pat Robertson condemning the city to “an eternity in Hell” because of our Muslim population. And how about Flashback, Sweden’s largest Internet forum with 300,000 members, where they agree that Malmö is “a cancer on our nation, which must be removed”. It’s not easy being a kid from Malmö.
There is one person, however, who is our shining beacon in the darkness. Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Zlatan’s career started in 1987, in the now-defunct local Malmö team MABI, when he was only six years old. A couple of years later, he switched to another local team, FBK Balkan, and made a name for himself there. In one football game, Zlatan was put on the bench during the first half, as he hadn’t behaved good enough to start the game. He came in at the start of the second half, when Balkan had a 0-4 defecit to deal with. 45 minutes later, FBK Balkan had won the game with the score 8-5.
Zlatan scored all of Balkan’s goals.
In 1995, Zlatan took the step up to the big football team in town, Malmö FF. After some ups and downs in the club, Zlatan made it to the main team in 1999 – a season that proved to be disastrous for MFF. Not only for their main rivals Helsingborg winning the league; for the first time since 1936 – when they were relegated by then-local rivals IFK Malmö – Malmö FF was relegated from Allsvenskan, the highest football league in Sweden, after 63 years. The first priority for MFF was to return to Allsvenskan by 2001, which was documented in the documentary “Blådårar 2 – vägen tillbaka”. Zlatan quickly rose to become the star in Malmö – the man that was going to take Malmö back to the top league. So what if Zlatan didn’t always play along with the rest of the team; he scored goals, he won games, and that’s all that mattered. And thus, Malmö finished 2nd and were promoted to Allsvenskan 2001. In the first game of the new season against AIK Solna, Zlatan scored both goals that won the game for Malmö in front of 17,000 excited fans at the old Malmö Stadion. A few months later, Zlatan signed with the Dutch football giants AJAX Amsterdam for 82 million SEK, Sweden’s most expensive football transfer to this date.
Zlatan became more and more popular in Sweden and eventually got the chance in the national team, when Sweden played against Azerbaijan in a qualifier game for the 2002 World Cup – Sweden won 3-0, the last goal scored by Zlatan. He would later appear in the World Cup, only playing two games: The group stage game against Argentina (1-1), and the play-off game against Senegal (1-2). It wasn’t quite his time yet – the EURO 2004 tournament would become his big breakthrough. In the second group stage game against Italy, the Italians had maintained a 1-0 lead throughout the game, until Zlatan heel kicked an equalizer in front of the Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon. The Swedish radio commentator and the Swedish fans on the stands go nuts. And most importantly, the world is watching. A couple of months later, Zlatan signs with the Italian football team Juventus – but first, another amazing goal from Zlatan, this one against NAC Breda. The goal was later selected by viewers of the pan-European sports channel Eurosport as “Goal of the Year”. Europe was looking at the birth of a new football star; a new Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney, Andrea Pirlo – you name it. He was heading towards that level, quickly becoming one of the big stars in European football. But there was still a few obstacles in the road…
When Zlatan won Lo Scudetto with Juventus in 2005, he became the first Swede to win the title since Kurt Hamrin with AC Milan in 1968. During the five seasons he played in the Italian top league, Serie A, Zlatan won Lo Scudetto in all five seasons; a feat that surpasses Nils Liedholm, part of the famous “Gre-No-Li” trio from AC Milan, who won the league four times in eight years. However, he would later be stripped of two of his titles – just days after Italy had won the 2006 World Cup after beating France in penalties, the final verdict fell on several Italian football teams following a game-rigging scheme. As a result, Juventus was forcibly relegated from Serie A to the lower division, and several of its players started looking for new teams to play with. While players like Buffon and Alessandro del Piero decided to stick with Juventus, Zlatan decided it was time to get out of Dodge. He eventually signed with Milano’s Internazionale (or Inter), the team he had rooted for as a child growing up in Malmö. One memorable moment was before a derby against local rivals AC Milan, when he spotted former Inter player/Brazilian superstar Ronaldo. Ronaldo was one of Zlatan’s favorite players during the Inter days, and one could only think what was going through his mind when he saw his childhood idol on the pitch – even if they were in the opposing teams now. In his three seasons for Inter, Zlatan scored 57 goals in 88 games and was close the first seasons on becoming the top scorer in Serie A. It wasn’t until the last season that Zlatan went all the way, when he scored 25 goals throughout the season and wrote himself into the same history books where Platini, Shevchenko, and Meazza reside today. And by becoming the Capocannonieri of Serie A in 2009, Zlatan became the first Swede to accomplish this feat since Gunnar Nordahl in 1955. He had outshined Gre-No-Li. He had become the greatest there ever was.
As he had become the greatest Swede in the history of Serie A, and became the first Swedish player to win Guldbollen – the award for the greatest Swedish football player of the year – for the third time, Zlatan has decided to find a new challenge. Several teams stood in line to ink a new contract him – among them, Spanish juggernaughts Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. In the meanwhile, it looked like Zlatan was going to stick with Inter. He was even given the #10 jersey before the start of the upcoming season, during a training camp in California. But there was still a few transfer rumors out there, some of them fueled by a “Zlatan” account on Twitter – which later turned out to be a hoax. The real Zlatan, however, had started negotiations with FC Barcelona – the deal negotiated would include a club swap with Barca’s Cameroonian striker Samuel Eto’o going to Inter as part of the deal. After a while, Eto’o agreed on going to Inter and earlier today, Zlatan Ibrahimovic signed a five-year contract with FC Barcelona.
The presentation of Zlatan was highly anticipated in Barcelona, with between 55,000-75,000 (depends on who you ask) fans filling up the gigantic Camp Nou stadium with a capacity of nearly 100,000 fans. The video that I’ve posted below shows you the presentation of Zlatan and the cheering from the crowd; as he was taking a lap around Camp Nou however, some fans were trying to storm the pitch to meet with Zlatan personally. He was later rushed down to the catacombs of the stadium, where he did one interview with a reporter for Barca TV before heading back to the dressing room. On the pitch however, it was still a bit of a clusterfuck.
Zlatan’s transfer from Inter to FC Barcelona is the fourth most expensive transfer in history – €45 million – and the most expensive transfer in history that is not related to Real Madrid. Look at the list yourselves, you’ll see. The most expensive transfer was completed earlier this year, when Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo signed with Real Madrid for €93 million. (DAMN!) There has been somewhat of a rivalry between Zlatan and C. Ronaldo, and the two playing in rivaling clubs will make the Spanish league even more interesting.
It’s not easy being a kid from Malmö – but Zlatan Ibrahimovic is living proof that people can come from down here and achieve wonders beyond our wildest imaginations.
Good luck in Barcelona, Zlatan. And thank you.
Thank you for giving us the hope that we need.
