Football Special Feature: How Ibrahimovic bottled his Barca dream
Just about a year ago the world witnessed the most bizarre and ridiculous transfer in the history of football. Barcelona handed over a wheelbarrow of cash along with Samuel Eto to land Zalatan Ibrahimovic at Camp Nou and there were suggestions that the Barca boss had lost his marbles but Guardiola insisted that it was an inspired signing.
Zalatan made his mark on the La Liga in the very first game, when a beautifully lofted chip by the Swede landed on Messi’s forehead and Barca defeated Getafe 2-0. The Argentinean ran to embrace the Swede and was joined by Xavi and Iniesta in the embrace.
With such an attacking array of options, the future of Barcelona looked wonderful.
Fast forward the story 12 months and it will now be the Brazilian contingent of Ronaldinho, Robinho and Pato who will be embracing the gigantic striker at the San Siro.
It has been a remarkable turnaround of events for the scintillating Swede.
The semi final loss to Chelsea in the 2009 Champion’s League was a bitter reminder to Guardiola that his team desperately needed a more direct route of football against physical oppositions like Chelsea, as their slick passing was rendered useless at Stamford Bridge. Guardiola needed a target man in the box who had pedigree in Europe and was big enough. Zalatan fit the bill perfectly and Josep paid the most insane amount of fee ever paid for a useless transfer.
Tactically, perhaps the move made sense, as Barcelona did need an imposing figure upfront if they were to repeat the unprecedented success of the year before. However, the only problem was that Ibra was not ready for the upgrade but that was more for psychological rather than physical reasons
Perhaps the Swede should have stayed at the Camp Nou for at least another season. Getting acquainted with the Blaugrana’s style of play is a challenge to any footballer but for a man of Ibra’s talents- the winner of six league championships in 3 countries- it wasn’t that big of deal, but the man bottled his chance. The breakdown of all communication between the coach and player made the transformation all the more impossible.
The fall out started towards the final months of the previous campaign when a slight dip in form saw the Swede struggling to match his swashbuckling start at the Camp Nou. The ex-Ajax front man looked off colour, off pace, and of the club’s last 11 matches of the season, started only 1, with the youngster Bojan Krkic preferred in the role of a central striker.
For an ego as big as himself, getting relegated to the bench was simply unacceptable and instead of doing his talking on the training ground and on the pitch, the Swede started to rebel against the strong team ethics that Guardiola had in place.
Ibra could not live with the fact that he was at a club where he was not the biggest super star, where he had the company of more illustrious men, players who deservedly attracted more praise and attention from the media and the coach.
Ibra could never understand during his time at Barcelona that Messi was light years ahead of him as a footballer.
When Ibra was dropped from the Barca squad that took part in the Super Cup final against Sevilla at the start of the season, it was the final indication that he was no longer wanted by Josep Guardiola and the event resulted in a number of verbal assaults by the footballer towards his manager.
What Ibrahimovic never realized or will never admit to realizing is that he only has himself to blame for the break up. It could have been a match made in heaven had Ibra not been a self obsessed crack head.
Ibra’s form was never good enough to deserve or demand a starting place towards the final stages of the last campaign. If someone thinks that he is the best player in the world playing in the best team in the world- like Ibra always thought - then he needs to constantly prove it, even if the competition is against Lionel Messi and David Villa.
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