Why Zlatan Ibrahimovic Fell Out With Pep Guardiola.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s long-standing feud with Pep Guardiola made a return recently as AC Milan took on Manchester City at the Yankee Stadium in New York, with both teams taking part in a pre-season friendly. The two awkwardly reunited following their explosive clash at Barcelona 14 years ago, and it’s safe to say there’s still bad blood between the former colleagues.
They briefly exchanged pleasantries with one another prior to Man City’s 3-2 pre-season defeat, with Guardiola approaching the former Manchester United forward to engage in an uncomfortable handshake. A forced hug then ensued, before a few seconds of small talk ended with Guardiola walking away to prepare for his side’s friendly.
But as the exchange depicted a coming together of two people that clearly don’t get along, it has got people talking again about what happened at Barcelona and the implications it has had at various flashpoints throughout both Guardiola and Ibrahimovic’s careers.
Ibrahimovic and Guardiola’s Heated Reunion
The pair haven’t made up yet
Zlatan Ibrahimović
Ibrahimovic has since shared the footage on social media, captioning the post: “Just a friendly game,” which has caused new light to be shed on the events surrounding the rivalry back when they worked together at Barcelona. Between 2009 and 2010, they won the La Liga title, UEFA Super Cup, Club World Cup and two Spanish Super Cups at the Nou Camp, but the fire between them has continued to burn since those riotous days in Catalonia.
One commentor on the post said that it was the first time he had seen Ibrahimovic – who has built his personality around the idea of being one of the sport’s best-loved mavericks across his 25-year career – look ‘visibly shook/uncomfortable’. Meanwhile, another fan highlighted the obvious, saying: ‘This is super awkward.’
This isn’t the first time, however, that Ibrahimovic has gone on record to voice his dislike of Guardiola since his Barcelona days, with the 42-year-old lifting the lid again in 2020. Speaking to La Gazzetta dello Sport in quotes carried by AS, Ibrahimovic aimed yet another dig at Guardiola: ‘Barcelona was a phenomenal team. The first six months were great and then, due to the fault of the coach, things turned sour.’
To get a better understanding of the ongoing criticism that the AC Milan star fires towards his previous coach, though, their history must be looked into.
Why Zlatan Ibrahimovic Fell Out With Pep Guardiola
The Swedish striker didn’t pull any punches in his autobiography
Not much was known about the rivalry between Guardiola and Ibrahimovic. But such is the way the latter seems incapable of keeping his lips sealed, all was revealed when he released his autobiography ‘I am Zlatan’ in 2013. Things initially went well at Barca for the Swedish star, who scored seven goals in his first seven league games in a team that had just secured the La Liga, Champions League and Copa del Rey treble in Guardiola’s first season.
However, he apparently grew tired of what he saw as favouritism towards then 22-year-old superstar Lionel Messi before he was moved from his preferred central striking role and then thrown out on loan to AC Milan in the summer of 2010 for his first stint there, before signing permanently the following year.
He went on to call his Barcelona boss a ‘spineless coward’ in the book, while revealing how Jose Mourinho became someone that he would be “willing to die for” during his time at Inter Milan. What’s more, he spoke of how he confronted his manager in the dressing room. “I yelled: ‘You haven’t got any balls!’ and worse than that I added: ‘You can go to hell!’ I completely lost it, and you might have expected Guardiola to say a few words in response, but he’s a spineless coward. He just picked up the metal box, like a little caretaker, and then left, never to mention it again, not a word.”
Interestingly, it wasn’t just Guardiola that felt like an obstacle for the then-31-year-old. Indeed, Ibrahimovic revealed that he couldn’t get around the club’s philosophy either, which saw players adhere to rules as though the manager was always right, likening it to a school classroom situation, saying: ‘When Guardiola spoke they would just sit there and nod. Like schoolboys in front of the teacher.’
Writing in his own book, which was co-written by Sebastian Fest, he stated: ‘When you buy me, you are buying a Ferrari. If you drive a Ferrari, you put premium petrol in the tank, you hit the motorway and you step on the gas. Guardiola filled up with diesel and took a spin in the countryside. He should have bought a Fiat.’
Guardiola’s man-management Skills Also Lambasted
Ibrahimovic feels that the problem could have been solved if Guardiola was more open
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola
Although reaction to the cold-hearted reunion between the two suggests that Guardiola has been the better man in the situation for making the effort to talk to Ibrahimovic, when talking to Sky Italia in 2017 (as per the Daily Mail), the Swedish icon argued otherwise by lambasting the manager’s inability to solve problems. He said: “I’d walk into a room and he’d walk out. I’d go to meet him and he’d go somewhere else. I understood that there was something beyond football.
“The problem was his. It was he who hadn’t solved the problem with me. I remember on my first day, he told me that the Barcelona players didn’t turn up to training in Ferraris or Porsches. He’d already judged me then, but if you don’t know a person, then you can’t judge them. I had my experience with him, I don’t know about others.
“I read the same thing had happened to (Mario) Mandzukic and (Samuel) Eto’o. He wasn’t the worst coach I’d worked under, but he was certainly the most immature because a man solves his problems.”
