A fascinating take on Ibrahimovic by his childhood friend: 'I was better than my best pal Zlatan... now he's a star and has snubbed me for 13 years'

By Neil Ashton

PUBLISHED: 17:06 EST, 31 March 2014 | UPDATED: 07:17 EST, 1 April 2014

A black BMW, probably 20 years old or more, pulls into the car park by a pier in a neighbourhood of Malmo and out steps Tony Flygare.

Straight away you can tell this guy was once in shape - back at a time when Flygare was creating waves in Swedish football.

At the water’s edge, where Flygare and Zlatan Ibrahimovic used the pier’s concrete pillars for goalposts, he points to where they would leap out of the water to perform spectacular bicycle kicks.

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Young boys: Tony Flygare and Zlatan Ibrahimovic as children playing
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Then and now: Tony Flygare and Zlatan Ibrahimovic as children playing and the PSG striker in action

The Z Tour: Ex-Malmo man Tony Flygare gives a tour of where Ibrahimovic grew up

The Z Tour: Ex-Malmo man Tony Flygare gives a tour of where Ibrahimovic grew up

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‘It didn’t hurt to fall so we practised for hours and there would be pretty girls watching from the pier so each time we got more and more daring. We played for points and I’m telling you I was always better than Zlatan.’

So that’s why Flygare decided to call his best-selling book Once I Was Bigger Than Zlatan. Back in the day, way before the pair played together in the same Malmo team, Flygare and Zigge, his nickname for the notorious Paris Saint-Germain striker, were inseparable.

They stole bikes together and tore around the Rosengard estate in Malmo where Ibrahimovic’s family lived.

When they weren’t on BMXs they studied video clips of Romario and Ronaldo,  perfecting their tricks.

They didn’t always agree, particularly about football. ‘I idolised Shearer and he hated English football because I loved it so much - that’s what he was like,’ said Flygare. ‘He always said he would play in Italy and he did.’

When they were called in off the street by Flygare’s mother they would sit on the couch for hours on end, fighting over control of the games console.

‘Like twins,’ said Flygare of their relationship. ‘I was a father figure to Zlatan in many ways, he looked up to me, but he was so competitive.

Friends and team-mates: Flygare and Ibrahimovic line up for Malmo in 1997

Friends and team-mates: Flygare and Ibrahimovic line up for Malmo in 1997

Father figure: Flygare says Ibrahimovic used to look up to him when the pair were younger

Father figure: Flygare says Ibrahimovic used to look up to him when the pair were younger

The house that Zlat built: Flygare stands outside Ibrahimovic's house in Malmo

The house that Zlat built: Flygare stands outside Ibrahimovic's house in Malmo

Fit for a star: The outside of Ibrahimovic's house in Malmo

Fit for a star: The outside of Ibrahimovic's house in Malmo

 

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‘He wanted to be better than me at everything — girls, football, PlayStation — and we would almost end up fighting. I was a mountain to him and he had to climb it.’

Ibrahimovic is the superstar now, earning £300,000 a week at PSG and readying himself for the Champions League quarter-final against Chelsea.

Now 32, he has been transferred between the top clubs in European football for a record £165million. A few years ago, Flygare was homeless.

‘When Zlatan heard I was writing my story, he sent a text message to one of my friends to say, “Tell Tony to keep his mouth shut or he will regret it”. But I still love him.’

They haven’t spoken for 13 years.

Ibrahimovic has an obsession with the Champions League, a trophy he has yet to win after a magnificent career across Europe.

‘It had become something of a fixation,’ he writes in his critically acclaimed autobiography, I Am Zlatan.

So far his journey has taken him as far as the semi-final in 2010, when he was in the Barcelona team beaten by Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan. Other than that he has reached the quarter-final with Ajax, the same again with Juventus, been beaten in the last eight with Milan and suffered a quarter-final exit with PSG last season.

Euro stars: Ibrahimovic, Cavani and the rest of the PSG will try to knock Chelsea out of the Champions League

Euro stars: Ibrahimovic, Cavani and the rest of the PSG will try to knock Chelsea out of the Champions League

‘Maybe it is his destiny never to win the Champions League,’ claimed Flygare.

The former Malmo striker, 33, knows all about fate and destiny.

In 1999 Flygare was in the Malmo team who played Halmstad as they battled to avoid relegation.
When Malmo were awarded a penalty in the final minutes, Flygare — only 17 at the time — was the one player prepared to take it.

‘That cocky b******,’ recalled Ibrahimovic. Flygare’s shot was saved and Malmo were relegated for the first time in their history.

‘Tony ended up in the freezer,’ wrote Ibrahimovic. ‘That was the moment I overtook him. Tony never made it back to the top level.’

Gateway to glory: Swedish park honouring Ibrahimovic

Gateway to glory: Swedish park honouring Ibrahimovic

The message is clear: The bridge into Rosengard, translated, You can take the man out of Rosengard but you cannot take the Rosengard out of the man

The message is clear: The bridge into Rosengard, translated, You can take the man out of Rosengard but you cannot take the Rosengard out of the man

Flygare lost his way, bumming around European football’s lower leagues with Assyriska in Sweden, Wehen Wiesbaden in Germany and FK Cementarnica in Macedonia before he really lost the plot.

‘Not so much alcohol, but drugs — cannabis, cocaine, you know — and gambling. Gambling  everything. I couldn’t replace the feeling of scoring goals,’ admitted Flygare.

Meanwhile his old friend Ibrahimovic was powering on, winning league titles with Ajax (2002 and 2004), Juventus (2005 and 2006), Inter Milan (2007, 2008, 2009),  Barcelona (2010) and PSG (2013).

‘When I was playing football in Germany I sent Zlatan a text message and he wrote back, “Which Tony?”.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic wins with Ajax
Italian job: Ibrahimovic celebrate with the trophy a Juventus

The trophy winner: Ibrahimovic celebrates winning titles with Ajax and Juventus

‘I’m like, “Come on Zlatan, what do you mean which Tony?” I sent him a joke, something only Zlatan and I would understand, so that he would know it’s me. He didn’t reply.

‘OK, you have your life now, I respect that and I am proud of you. If I saw you now I would say, “Come here you big b******” and I would mean it, but don’t disrespect me like that, don’t take my pride.’

The last time Flygare saw his childhood friend was a chance meeting in a Stockholm shopping centre 13 years ago when Ibrahimovic was on international duty with Sweden.

‘You have to understand how close we once were,’ added Flygare. ‘The first European match Zigge ever watched was when my dad drove us to Trelleborgs to watch them play Blackburn in 1994.

Home sweet home: Flygare goes back to where he and Zlatan would kick a football around in Rosengard

Home sweet home: Flygare goes back to where he and Zlatan would kick a football around in Rosengard

Fields of dreams: Flygare goes back to where he and Ibrahimovic would hang out and play football

Fields of dreams: Flygare goes back to where he and Ibrahimovic would hang out and play football

Hitting the beach: Ibrahimovic lies on the beach in his younger years

Hitting the beach: Ibrahimovic lies on the beach in his younger years

‘That was the bond we have. We have known each other since we were six years old. We did everything together.’

That evening they went for dinner. ‘Zlatan said, “Take me where the King eats for dinner” and that’s what we did.’

They laughed and joked about their acrobatic moves at the pier, swapping numbers at the end of the evening and promising to keep in touch.

‘Maybe his career took him in a different direction. The first mountain he had to climb was me, the second was Lionel Messi.’

Ah, Messi. It was Messi who squeezed him out of Barcelona, according to I Am Zlatan, within months of his arrival at the Nou Camp.

On his way: Ibrahimovic left Barcelona after he felt he was being pushed out onto the wing by Lionel Messi

On his way: Ibrahimovic left Barcelona after he felt he was being pushed out onto the wing by Lionel Messi

Starting out: Ibrahimovic in his early years in Sweden

Starting out: Ibrahimovic in his early years in Sweden

‘He went up to Pep Guardiola and told him, “I don’t want to be on the right wing any more, I want to be in the centre”,’ wrote Ibrahimovic.

He had moved to Barcelona in 2009 with the specific target of winning the Champions League under Guardiola. It eluded him, just as his former coach had predicted.

Mourinho said: ‘You’re going to Barca to win the Champions League, huh?’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ answered Ibrahimovic.

‘But we’re the ones who are gonna bring it home — don’t forget. It’s gonna be us!’.

Mourinho was spot on. Inter won it the year Ibrahimovic left.

At the Amsterdam Arena in 2001, Ibrahimovic pulled out the ‘snake’ trick to see off the Liverpool defender Stephane Henchoz.

Box of tricks: Ibrahimovic fools Liverpool's Stephane Henchoz with a 'snake' trick

Box of tricks: Ibrahimovic fools Liverpool's Stephane Henchoz with a 'snake' trick

Too hot to handle: Ibrahimovic scores for Barcelona against Arsenal

Too hot to handle: Ibrahimovic scores for Barcelona against Arsenal

‘First I went left and he did, too,’ Ibrahimovic told the media after the game — a 3-1 win in a friendly.

‘Then I went right and he did, too.

‘Then I headed left and he headed out to buy a hot dog.’

There has always been a  swagger about Ibrahimovic, right from the early days. ‘He could be cocky and a lot of  players didn’t like it,’ admitted his former Malmo team-mate Niclas Kindvall.

‘That is Zlatan — a showman. When he was young he always wanted to dribble, but I told him, “You are a centre forward, you have to score goals”.’

Friends reunited: Ibrahimovic will take on his former manager Jose Mourinho when Chelsea face PSG

Friends reunited: Ibrahimovic will take on his former manager Jose Mourinho when Chelsea face PSG

Ibrahimovic really got going from his second season onwards with Ajax and has scored some of the great modern goals.

The backheel against Anderlecht (2013), the left-foot drive against Bayer Leverkusen (2013) that prompted him to say ‘there is no weaker foot’ and the lob beyond Arsenal keeper Manuel Almunia (2010), rank among the best of his 42 Champions League strikes for six clubs.

This year, with PSG 13 points clear of Monaco at the top of Ligue 1, he has scored 40 times in 42 games.

The main man: Ibrahimovic hopes to lead PSG to European glory

The main man: Ibrahimovic hopes to lead PSG to European glory

Book

In Paris on Wednesday it is the turn of Mourinho, another old friend, to try to stop him getting his hands on the European Cup.

‘He loves Mourinho, but I am the only person who really knows Zlatan,’ said Flygare, who wrote his book with Swedish journalist Daniel Nilsson Padilla.

On Monday Flygare paid a rare visit to the Zlatan Court, a purpose-built practice pitch paid for by Nike for the kids of the Rosengard estate.

Flygare would love to see his old friend in Rosengard again one last time, to take a ball to the park together and try out those tricks.

Instead, he will watch the quarter-final in the front room of his mother’s apartment in Malmo where he used to sit for hours on end with Ibrahimovic.

‘I could have written a very different book, but I wanted to respect Zlatan and what we have together,’ he said.

 

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wow. so many lies, im from sweden i´ve seen a few interviews both in text and video of flygare talking about some of the topics brought up here. he never mentioned that zlatan told him (or his friend) to shut up, and when they meet 13 years ago in sthlm, flygare saw zlatan from behind and grabbed him by the crotch, zlatan got shocked and they greted eachother, then flygare said buy me some food take me where the king eat (meaning zlatan), and zlatan said shure.

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A big yawn, using Zlatan's name to sell his book.

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If Zlatan was playing in England, he would become a god.

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How did this story make it to DM? This just pointless.

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Ibrahimovic says in his autobiography that he wasn't the best when he was a kid but that he worked really hard, practised all the time and pushed himself so that he did. Hard work pays off.

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Zlatan is a likable rogue, rogue being a softer word I could use to describe him lol

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Jimbo was better than Ronaldo at spamming the whole LFC's articles

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Sounds bitter!

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yawn

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Tony obviously went down the wrong path, lost his way with drugs and that, I don't blame zlatan for losing touch. And footballers develop at different rates, look at Wayne Rooney and Cristiano ronaldo, Rooney was always the hottest prospect but he's not good enough to lace ronaldos boots now.

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