QPR turned down chance to sign teenage Zlatan Ibrahimovic

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Queens Park Rangers did not `#daretozlatan` when he was just 16-years-old and the Swede ended up becoming one of the world’s best strikers

A former team-mate of Zlatan Ibrahimovic has sensationally claimed in a new book that QPR passed up the opportunity to sign the Paris Saint-Germain star.

Tony Flygare, a childhood friend of Ibrahimovic, tells the story in his release `One, I was better than Zlatan`.

The pair grew up together in Rosengard, Sweden, and were both part of the youth set up at Malmo, who sent them both to QPR – in the English second tier at the time – for a week-long trial when Gerry Francis was manager in 1998.

In his book Flygare details how Ibrahimovic, who next week will face Chelsea in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, trained with the reserve team but was not asked back.

“Zlatan was holding on to the ball for too long and the trainer tackled him when he wasn’t expecting it,” said Flygare in an interview with the Daily Mail. “For that, Zlatan tackled him back and then told the trainer to “**** off”. He went mad at Zlatan.

Being in England was so much different. He just told Zlatan: “for that, you’re going to breathe through your a***”. I’ll never forget it. We didn’t hear from QPR again. Zlatan didn’t want to play or stay in England, that is my opinion.”

In the intervening years since, QPR have yo-yoed between the divisions in England and Ibrahimovic has gone on to score nearly 250 career goals and won league titles with Ajax, Inter Milan, Barcelona, AC Milan and PSG.

Flygare’s tale is not the first about Ibrahimovic failing to take to England.

The striker, now 32, tells in his own autobiography `I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic` how he also had the chance to join Arsenal while he was a teenager at Malmo, and demanded an instant trial when he sat in Arsene Wenger’s office at the training ground.

He wrote: “I wanted to show him what I could do. ‘Give me a pair of boots. I’ll have a trial, I’ll do it right now.’

Ibrahimovic is renowned for scoring spectacular goals with his sponsor Nike therefore calling his range the #daretozlatan collection. One such example was one of the four goals he scored against England in a friendly at the Friends Arena in November 2011. His spectacular bicycle kick for Sweden won the 2013 FIFA Puskás Award for Goal of the Year.