Zlatan Ibrahimović

Malmö FF

Ibrahimović signed his first contract with Malmö in 1996, and moved up to the senior side for the 1999 season of Allsvenskan, Sweden's top-flight league. That season, Malmö finished 13th in the league and were relegated to the second division, but returned to the top flight the next season. Arsène Wenger unsuccessfully tried to persuade Ibrahimović to join Arsenal, while Leo Beenhakker (the technical director of Ajax) also expressed interest in the player after watching him in a friendly against Norwegian side Moss FK. On 22 March 2001, a deal between Ajax and Malmö regarding Ibrahimović's transfer to Amsterdam was announced, and in July, Ibrahimović officially joined Ajax for 80 million Swedish kronor (€8.7 million).

Ajax

Ibrahimović received little playing time under manager Co Adriaanse, but when Adriaanse was sacked on 29 November 2001, new coach Ronald Koeman inserted Ibrahimović into the starting lineup as Ajax won the 2001–02 Eredivisie title. The next season, Ibrahimović scored twice in a 2–1 victory over French champions Lyon in his Champions League debut on 17 September 2002. He scored five Champions League goals overall as Ajax fell to Milan in the quarter-finals. Ibrahimović's profile rose when he scored an individual goal against NAC Breda on 22 August 2004 – a slaloming run past five opposition players which the commentator compared with Diego Maradona and Zinedine Zidane – that was eventually voted the Goal of the Year by Eurosport…

Youth

Ibrahimović said in a 2026 interview with Slaven Bilić that in addition to his Swedish passport, he also held a passport from Bosnia and Herzegovina, but he chose to play for Sweden. In 1999, Ibrahimović played four games and scored one goal for the Sweden U18 team. In 2001, he made his debut for the Sweden U21 team and played in two games in the 2002 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifying campaign, including the second-leg game against Belgium in the qualification play-offs which saw Sweden eliminated from the competition. In total, Ibrahimović played seven games and scored six goals for the U21 team.

Senior

Early career and 2002 FIFA World Cup

Ibrahimović was eligible to represent Sweden, Bosnia and Herzegovina or Croatia at international level; he chose Sweden. He debuted in a goalless friendly draw against the Faroe Islands at Tipshallen on 31 January 2001 during the 2000–01 Nordic Football Championship. On 7 October 2001, he played his first competitive match, a 2002 World Cup qualifier against Azerbaijan, scoring his first ever international goal in a 3–0 win as Sweden topped their group to qualify for the upcoming tournament. Ibrahimović was part of the Sweden squad at the 2002 FIFA World Cup held in Korea and Japan, who were eliminated at the round of 16 by newcomers Senegal. He appeared twice in the tournament, coming on as a substitute in the group stage game against Argentina and in the round of 16 match against…

On 11 December 2023, RedBird Capital Partners announced the hiring of Ibrahimović as a new senior adviser to AC Milan. Since then, despite not being officially part of AC Milan's managerial staff, Ibrahimović was deeply involved in the club's internal organizational matters, with RedBird's head Gerry Cardinale stating him to be his "proxy" at the club. Ibrahimović served as one of the analysts alongside Alexi Lalas and Thierry Henry for Fox Sports' coverage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

Ibrahimović was born in Malmö, Sweden, on 3 October 1981. He was born to a Muslim Bosniak father, Šefik Ibrahimović, who emigrated to Sweden in 1977, and a Catholic Croat mother, Jurka Gravić, who also emigrated to Sweden where the couple first met. He began playing football at the age of six, after receiving a pair of football boots. He alternated between FBK Balkan, a Malmö club founded by Yugoslav immigrants, Malmö BI and briefly BK Flagg football clubs. As a child, his mother sometimes hit him on the head with a wooden spoon, which would often break. After she was arrested for handling stolen goods, social services intervened. Concerned with his divorced mother's ability to cope with five children, one of whom, Ibrahimović's half-sister, had a drug problem, at age nine he was sent to live with his father. With food scarce at his father's home where the fridge was packed with beer, Ibrahimović often went hungry so he would run to his mother's for dinner. He also shoplifted and stole bikes. On the tough upbringing that shaped his character, author David Lagercrantz, who co-wrote I Am Zlatan, states:

Complex is the best word to describe Zlatan. On the one hand he's a strong, warrior type who knew he had to be very tough to survive. So he takes on fights all the time because he's always had to. But another part of him is vulnerable. He's a guy wounded by his upbringing, who uses all that to create strength for himself. In his position, 99 guys out of 100 would have gone…