As the two confidence-fuelled strikers prepare to go head to head in their Euro 2016 play-off on Saturday night we look at how they are seen in Scandinavia and why their careers took such different pathsMonday night,Stockholm. A tall figure with a ponytail and a goatee makes his way on to the stage and prepares to start his acceptance speech. whether there is a sense of history repeating itself, it is no surprise. History is repeating itself. It’s Groundhog Day. Zlatan Ibrahimovic has just become Sweden’s footballer of the year for a ninth consecutive year. It is his 10th Guldboll in total.
Anyone in that position could be forgiven for fitting a bit jaded. Not Zlatan. He has a line. Zlatan always has a line. This time he talks about when he was playing for one of Malmo FF’s youth teams. “final year I promised to near back here to pick up my 10th Guldboll, and ” he says. “I don’t know whether I can promise the same thing for next year. But this one has got me thinking about my time at Malmo when I was a young boy. I was sitting in the dressing room,had a look around and thought: ‘In order to be successful I need to be 10 times as good as everyone else here.’”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com