Zlatan Ibrahimovic met his Manchester United teammates for the first time on Thursday, training with them in the summer drizzle at Carrington.
The other players had already heard the stories from club staff, who’d met the Swede, about his size and presence. At 98 kilograms, the striker, who is six-foot-five-inches tall, will be by far the heaviest at the club. (He’s 30 kilos heavier than his old strike partner Lionel Messi, not that they’re the same type of player.) A lack of physical prowess is unlikely to prevent him settling in England, where he has never played club football.
Many in the country have doubted his talents after he seldom shone against Premier League clubs in European competition but, not for the first time, the view in England doesn’t tally with the rest of Europe. There, the Swede is revered, especially in Italy, for his strength and skill, which led one journalist to describe him as “half ballerina, half gangster.”
United’s players are together for the first time, though not before Jose Mourinho led those who were in China to training on Tuesday, as soon as they’d arrived back from a problematic tour. The club’s training base is well used by the local community, with various groups enjoying access to its pool and other amenities. As such, classes were rescheduled at short notice.
The players have two full days training together before they fly on a day trip to Sweden for a friendly against Galatasaray. Despite the vast popularity of Ibrahimovic, who was named the country’s second-greatest sportsman by one newspaper, the game is not yet a sellout, although the cheapest United section, behind the goal in a 43,000 capacity stadium, will be full.
Not that tickets, which cost the equivalent of €55 — almost twice the price of a seat on the lower tier of Old Trafford’s Stretford End for a Premier League game — can be considered cheap. The most expensive tickets, which are still available, are the equivalent of €150.
Tickets for a normal Swedish league game are priced between €12-50, but promoters have to recover their costs given the high appearance fees charged by United. It was the same in China, where a game in Shanghai vs. Borussia Dortmund didn’t sell out and the cancelled match with Manchester City in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium had many unsold seats.
United enjoy strong support in Scandinavia and, when they last played in Gothenburg in 2012, the game against Barcelona did sell out. As it did when United played IFK Gothenburg in a 1994 Champions League game, when a young winger called Jesper Blomqvist gave David May a night he’d rather forget. The pair would become friends when Blomqvist joined United in 1998.
Despite setbacks in China, Mourinho’s plans are starting to come together. United remain hopeful of signing Paul Pogba, while the manager has started to inform some that they will be allowed to leave or go on loan. The Portuguese wants to work with a core of 22-24 and would rather inform players now, rather than just days before the end of the transfer window, leaving them little time to get a new club.
Ibrahimovic will not be one of those players. He arrived on a free transfer and turns 35 in October, but has shown no sign of being a diminishing force, having scored more than 20 goals in each of the last nine seasons. In 2015-16 he scored 50 for Paris Saint-Germain including 38 in 31 league games; more than the combined total of United’s top six scorers.
United’s goal count has come down in each of the last four campaigns and a potent striker is needed. With Ibrahimovic, as well as last season’s top scorer Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford, the promise is clear. Wayne Rooney should soon become United’s all-time leading scorer — he trails Sir Bobby Charlton by just four goals — but the favourite to lead the line and the scoring chart is the big Swede.
Much could go wrong — Radamel Falcao could testify to that after he arrived with high hopes in 2014 – but, while the Colombian struggled for form after a serious injury, Ibrahimovic has enjoyed better fortune. Aged 20, he stated than only injury would stop him being the best player in the world.
His remarkable self-confidence and self-assuredness is part of his motivation, a “Zlatan against the world” mentality instilled in a child who endured a tough upbringing in gritty Rosengard, a suburb of Malmo.
It was at his hometown club that he made his professional debut and where Arsene Wenger, always alert to new foreign talent, travelled to speak to him, bringing along an Arsenal shirt for good measure. Malmo insisted he was not for sale
Ibrahimovic brings experience and character to a dressing room lacking the latter. Louis van Gaal demanded obedience and for players to followed instructions to the letter, not to challenge him. Mourinho is different and, while there might be worries if he and Ibrahimovic hadn’t worked together, they have, successfully so at Inter in 2008-09.
In his bestselling autobiography I Am Zlatan, he contrasted Pep Guardiola, with whom he’d fallen out during a season at Barcelona, with his new United boss.
“Mourinho is a big star,” Ibrahimovic wrote. “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.’ The guy says what he wants. I like him. He’s the leader of the 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 Guardiola. If Mourinho lights up a room Guardiola draws the curtains.”
The Old Trafford stage is a big one and many a striker has faltered on it but it’s perfect for the Swede with a permanent point to prove, especially against Man City’s new manager. And how United fans need another great hero to bring back the smiles.
-espnfc