Ahead of Saturday’s Manchester derby, we look at one of football’s most bitter rivalries between Zlatan Ibrahimovic and former manager Pep Guardiola.
With Manchester United and Manchester City set to face off on Saturday in what is already being hailed as one of the world’s biggest games, fans of both teams are waiting with bated breath as old foes Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola prepare to go head to head once again.
Amongst the media furore surrounding the titanic event however, another ex-rivalry of similar proportions seems to have somewhat flown under the radar – the reunion of Zlatan Ibrahimović with ex-boss Guardiola.
Having signed for Guardiola’s Barcelona in the summer of 2009 for an astounding £59 million – plus Samuel Eto’o – Ibrahimović looked set to take his place alongside Lionel Messi and Thierry Henry in what was being touted as one of the best front-threes ever seen in footballing history.
After a string of much-publicised falling-outs with new manager Guardiola, however, Ibrahimović barely even lasted a single season with the Catalan giants, eventually being sold to Italian side A.C Milan at a loss of almost £40 million.
Since leaving Barcelona, both Guardiola and Ibrahimović have firmly cemented their place in footballing folklore, with Guardiola having collected a further 13 major footballing honours, whilst Zlatan scored almost 160 league goals across just the six seasons that followed.
So where did it all go wrong for the legendary pair? And just why weren’t two of the game’s most recognisable and undoubtedly talented individuals capable of working together long-term?
First and foremost, the pair possess almost polar opposite approaches to the sport that has given them so much.
Guardiola, famed for his methodical and patient approach to almost every aspect of his management, has always desired players who can buy into his philosophy, and above all else, place the needs of the team ahead of the needs of the individual.
Ibrahimović, however, has always been a player with a taste for the ostentatious and grandiose side of football, two traits which have seen him develop into undoubtedly one of the biggest names – and biggest personalities – in world football.
It is also these traits however that lie at the heart of the reason for why the talismanic Swede was incapable of playing under Guardiola at Barcelona.
Initially acting as the lone striker in Guardiola’s famed 4-3-3 formation – with Henry and Messi either side of him – Ibrahimović is said to have first fallen foul of Guardiola after learning of the Spaniard’s plans to transform Messi from a goalscoring winger to an out-and-out central player.
Now, whilst with hindsight this may just go down as one of the most influential decisions that world football has ever witnessed, the mere insinuation at the time that Ibrahimović would no longer be the focal point of the Barcelona team was just too much for the towering striker’s ego.
So too was Guardiola’s methodical approach to the game. As a player who thrived off raw passion and – in the words of legendary Italian defender Marco Materazzi – ‘hatred and revenge’, Guardiola’s patient and slow style of play prompted Zlatan to liken playing under Guardiola as ‘like going to school, or some sort of institution’.
Ibrahimović also believed that Guardiola had always treated him like an outsider at Barcelona, with the striker claiming that the Spaniard viewed him more as a ‘some kind of disturbance, or alien’ rather than a prized asset to be utilised in the team.
With Guardiola and Ibrahimović’s relationship said to be pushed to almost breaking point at Barcelona, there is of course another factor that is said to have pushed the pair beyond the point of no return – Zlatan’s relationship with Jose Mourinho.
Guardiola’s eternal rival, and antithesis of everything the Spaniard stood for, Ibrahimović was said to have near-worshipped Mourinho whilst playing for the Portuguese manager at former club Inter Milan.
This adoration is said to have followed Ibrahimović to Barcelona, with the pair remaining in frequent contact throughout the Swedish striker’s full time in the Catalan capital.
Now, with Zlatan playing under Mourinho once again, and Guardiola seemingly the only man standing between the pair and an almost fairytale Premier League title for Zlatan in his maiden Premier League campaign under Mourinho, the old rivalry seems ready to fire up once again.
And with Ibrahimović possessing a burning desire for revenge – and the chance to finally prove to Guardiola what a mistake it was to spurn him whilst at Barcelona – we may just witness the fieriest chapter of their much-vaunted rivalry to date on Saturday afternoon.
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