Zlatan Ibrahimović member of sports team Malmö FF
Complex is the best word to describe Zlatan. On the one hand he's a strong, warrior type who knew he had to be very tough to survive. So he takes on fights all the time because he's always had to. But another part of him is vulnerable. He's a guy wounded by his upbringing, who uses all that to create strength for himself. In his position, 99 guys out of 100 would have gone under, but he used his anger to make himself better. He told me, ‘David, I need to be angry to play well’. When he played with middle-class kids he felt inferior because he wore the wrong clothes and had no money, so he said to himself ‘One day I'll show them!’ That became his motivation.
While in his early teens, Ibrahimović was a regular for his hometown club Malmö FF. At the age of 15, he was close to quitting his football career, in favour of working at the docks in Malmö, but his manager convinced him to continue playing. As a boy, his hero was Brazilian forward Ronaldo. An avid viewer of Italian football, another player he admired was prolific striker Gabriel Batistuta – a player with similar characteristics to himself.Club career
Malmö FF
Ibrahimović signed his first contract with Malmö in 1996, and moved up to the senior side for the 1999 season of Allsvenskan, Sweden's top-flight league. That season, Malmö finished 13th in the league and were relegated to the second division, but returned to the top flight the next season. Arsène Wenger unsuccessfully tried to persuade Ibrahimović to join Arsenal, while Leo Beenhakker (the technical director of Ajax) also expressed interest in the player after watching him in a friendly against Norwegian side Moss FK. On 22 March 2001, a deal between Ajax and Malmö regarding Ibrahimović's transfer to Amsterdam was announced, and in July, Ibrahimović officially joined Ajax for 80 million Swedish kronor (€8.7 million).
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