Ibrahimovic's long history of rows after clash with Lukaku
Telling Rafael van der Vaart he would break both his legs, throttling Simon Kjaer, branding Pep Guardiola ‘immature’ and breaking a rib while scrapping with a team-mate… Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s history of rows after his heated clash with Romelu Lukaku
- Zlatan Ibrahimovic made headlines again after a bust-up with Romelu Lukaku
- The pair butted heads and exchanged angry words in the Milan derby this week
- Ibrahimovic has a long history of clashing with players and coaches in his career
- Sportsmail goes through the list of conflicts involving the Swedish star
The colourful Zlatan Ibrahimovic is never far away from a tussle, even as he approaches his forties. He proved it once again after butting heads with Inter’s Romelu Lukaku in the Milan derby this week.
‘Go do your voodoo s***, you little donkey,’ Ibrahimovic was heard yelling at the Belgian, who replied: ‘f*** you and your wife, you little b****’ as both players were shown yellow cards for their behaviour.
Lukaku chased his rival down the tunnel at the half-time whistle, trying to insinuate that the Swede had made a comment about his mother as their team-mates desperately tried to pull them apart. For Zlatan – who went on to receive his marching orders after the interval for a second yellow – this is nothing new.
Going toe-to-toe with the veteran forward is a losing game, as many have discovered in the past. This is a man who believes he is ‘perfect’ and has compared himself to ‘a Ferrari’ and even God. His track record on the pitch speaks for itself – nearly 500 goals in his career and 25 in this age-defying season.
But he has never backed down against those who have gotten in his way or tried to upstage him throughout his 22-year career. Here, Sportsmail looks back on Ibrahimovic’s most famous bust-ups and fiery conflicts.
Romelu Lukaku (left) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic bumped heads during a heated exchange
The Swedish star has never been afraid to unleash his fury and has a long history of clashes
Clashing with Marcos Rojo at United
When Zlatan wants the ball, he usually gets it. If not, trouble usually ensues – as Rojo found out during a Manchester United training session.
When the Argentinian decided to lay off a pass to Paul Pogba instead of Ibra, who was signalling at him, the Swede was far from pleased – but Rojo was nearly left to regret the words he aimed at him, as he came close to triggering a brawl.
‘Zlatan has a strong character, Ezequiel Lavezzi had warned me,’ Rojo told Cielo Sports. ‘I knew he wanted us to give him all the balls, but during a game phase I saw him ask for it and I didn’t give it to him. I passed it to Paul Pogba.
‘Then he started yelling at me, raising his hand, and telling me a lot of things in Spanish and English.
He was involved in an angry face off with Marcos Rojo, who insulted his ‘big nose’ in training
‘I said to him: “What’s going on with you big nose? Shut up…”
‘I knew that if he caught me, he would kill me so the only thing for me to do was face him.’
When the team finished the session and went back into the dressing room, the row escalated further as both players squared up to each other, with then-boss Jose Mourinho forced to intervene.
‘When he entered the locker room, I directly told him to close his mouth and stop yelling,’ Rojo continued. ‘We started to insult each other and all our team-mates were watching us. And in the middle, Jose Mourinho was trying to calm us down.’
Threatening to break Van der Vaart’s legs
Some players just don’t like each other. Rafael van der Vaart and Ibrahimovic really don’t like each other. The pair were at Ajax in 2004 when they came up against each other in a friendly between Sweden and Holland.
After a group of Dutchmen attempted to thwart the striker from driving forwards with the ball, Zlatan pushed past them and left one of them – Van der Vaart – with an ankle injury in the process. The midfielder was ruled out for a couple of games but had told a newspaper that his team-mate did it on purpose.
Zlatan claims he phoned the player to insist it was an accident, but the duo were called into a meeting with manager Ronald Koeman’s as tensions grew – and Van der Vaart refused to back down in his claims.
He wrote in his autobiography: ‘Zlatan did it on purpose,’ said Van der Vaart, and I saw red. ‘I didn’t injure you on purpose, and you know that. If you accuse me again I’ll break both your legs, and that time it will be on purpose.’
At Ajax, he told Rafael van der Vaart he would ‘break his legs’ after the Dutchman accused him of intentionally injuring him
Speaking about the incident, Van der Vaart confirmed the Swede did in fact make the threat towards him, but insisted ‘he says that to everyone’.
‘It’s also true that around that time things just weren’t working between the two of us,’ Van der Vaart said in 2019.
‘But I would rather be in a team with people who are honest, like him, even if it means there are a few arguments. There wasn’t a specific moment we fell out. We generally didn’t get along well.’
Their rivalry continued seven years later when they faced off as Tottenham travelled to AC Milan in the Champions League knockouts. ‘First of all I want to win,’ Van der Vaart told the Sun ahead of the game. ‘Second, I want to play the ball between Zlatan’s legs. That would be a very nice bonus.’
He indeed got his wish, as Spurs won 1-0 at the San Siro before dumping Ibrahimovic’s side out with a 0-0 draw in the second leg.
Throttling Simon Kjaer for getting too close
Sometimes Ibrahimovic is so good there is little else you can do but stick on him like a white on rice. That’s what Fenerbache defender Simon Kjaer did during their Europa League clash with Manchester United in 2016, and the Swede was visibly frustrated by the tight marking.
As he was running with the ball, with Kjaer breathing down his neck, Ibrahimovic shoved the defender aside, and the Dane immediately grabbed him as the striker tried to get the ball after it went out of play.
Bad idea. Zlatan was furious after he put his arms around him and quickly grabbed the player by the throat, with the pair having to be separated by team-mates and United boss Mourinho – who has become all too familiar with his bust-ups.
Speaking after the game, Kjaer described him as an ‘arrogant chest-puffing player’ but dismissed his conduct as ‘part of the game’.
Ibrahimovic was left furious after being grabbed by Simon Kjaer during a Europa League clash
He throttled the defender who was marking him tightly in United’s game against Fenerbache
‘I actually didn’t hear what he said but I do know that he wasn’t happy,’ Kjaer told Swedish Channel 9. ‘But that’s the way I know him from the pitch. He is the kind of chest-puffing player, who is arrogant. That is his way of playing. My way of playing is to mark him as tightly as possible and to give him as little space as possible, because he is a good player.
‘It is a part of football and I don’t take it too seriously. It is not the first time I play against him and I know how he reacts. It is not a problem. It is, like I said, a part of the game.’
The pair are now team-mates at AC Milan three years on, and the defender attempted to smooth things over between the two after signing last year.
‘I have faced him many times during my career,’ Kjaer said. ‘We’ve had our battles on the pitch, but there are no problems between us.
‘We have the same goal, to give Milan a hand and lift them as high as possible. His career speaks for itself, it’s a pleasure for everyone that he’s here.’
Telling Nedum Onouha he’d ‘do him’ at Galaxy
When Ibrahimovic took his career to the United States, with him followed his ego.
In a game against Real Salt Lake, Ibrahimovic had done what he did with ease with LA Galaxy – score goals, and decided to celebrate right in the face of former Man City defender Onouha after netting a late winner.
Ibrahimovic had been taunting the Englishman, who claimed he had said he would ‘do him’ and ‘hurt’ him. After the game he entered the Salt Lake dressing room in a bid to apologise to Onouha, who was having none of it.
‘He came into apologise after the game,’ Onuoha said. ‘From 60 minutes in, he’s saying he’s going to do me, he’s going to hurt me for that game.
The Swede hurled abuse at ex-City defender Nedum Onouha when the pair were in the MLS
Ibrahimovic told the defender he would ‘do him’ and celebrated in his face after scoring for LA Galaxy against Real Salt Lake
‘This is a guy who says he’s the face of the MLS, as he calls in himself, and he plays that way on the field. I don’t care — if someone comes in and says that to me, you don’t say that on the field. I don’t care. I’m not going to accept his apology. It’s unacceptable.’
Ibrahimovic refused to add more fuel to the flames when quizzed about the confrontation, saying he ‘likes to feel alive’ on the pitch and ‘feels good’ when he’s angry.
‘What happens on the field stays on the field,’ he said. ‘I like to feel alive. I like when it becomes duels and that because sometimes, not that I fall asleep, but I don’t feel alive if they don’t activate me.
‘They need to activate me or else it becomes too easy. I know me. When I get angry I feel good.’
Calling Joey Barton an ‘English p***y
Zlatan Ibrahimovic v Joey Barton is like fire fighting with fire. Two bullish players who love a scrap, this one was never going to end well. Ibrahimovic was playing for PSG in 2013 when he came up against Barton – then a Marseille player.
The pair were involved in a few duels and Barton wasn’t pleased after being fouled a couple of times by the big forward – and risked his wrath by telling him he had ‘a very big nose’ as he was caught on the cameras making a gesture towards it.
He told Dugout: ‘Ibra didn’t like it because things weren’t going his way and he told me, in no uncertain terms, I think he called me an English p***y, which is one of the nicer things I’ve been called.
‘So, I said to him “stop fouling me, don’t put your hands on me then the ref won’t give a foul”. And he’s saying, “ah, you’re meant to be a strong man, stay on your feet”.
He called Joey Barton an ‘English p***y’ after fouling him during PSG’s clash against Marseille
‘I’m like, “well, I’m not going to stay on my feet if you’re fouling me”.
‘So, I think he was calling me something else derogatory – I don’t think I can say it on the camera – and I started laughing.
‘And I said, “yeah, yeah, I am. I might be a p***y but you’ve got a very big nose. A very, very big nose”.
‘He said something back, then I made the gesture which was caught by the cameras – and this is the meme that goes around every time anything is said by me about Ibra.’
Taking a swipe at ‘immature’ Pep Guardiola
Ibrahimovic scored goals every where he played, but Barcelona was arguably the one place he struggled to make the same impact. His first season in 2009-10 was still excellent as he netted 21 times, but was benched for large parts of the campaign after accusing Guardiola of ‘sacrificing’ players for the sake of Lionel Messi.
He said his spell had been going well for the first six months before the Spaniard started changing the tactics to suit the Argentine, but to the detriment of the other players.
‘We changed system and tactics, and it wasn’t good for me, so the club told me to talk to Guardiola,’ he said in 2017.
‘And I told Guardiola that he’d sacrificed the other players for Messi. He told me he understood me.
Ibrahimovic took Pep Guardiola to task for his tactics at Barcelona and called him ‘immature’
‘After that, he put me on the bench for the next game, the one after that and the one after that. And I thought, “he’s solved the problem very well I see!” After that, he didn’t talk to me or even look at me.
‘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.
‘He wasn’t the worst coach I’d worked under, but he was certainly the most immature because a man solves his problems.’
Punching his own team-mate and breaking a rib during a scrap
In the early days of his career, Ibrahimovic was making a name for himself at Juventus – who he joined in 2004 – but reacted wildly to a bad challenge from his team-mate Jonathan Zebina in training – punching the Frenchman in the face.
But when defender Lillian Thuram attempted to intervene, he was given a dressing down by then-manager Fabio Capello – who believed fighting was good for team spirit, as he screamed: ‘Shut up and leave him alone’.
Both players were fined for the altercation and it wasn’t the last one Ibra would have in Italy. Later on after joining AC Milan in 2010, there was another player he didn’t see eye-to-eye with – American defender Oguchi Onyewu.
Onyewu had accused him of ‘trash-talking’, something Zlatan refuted. After a verbal exchange, he flew into a rage and started scrapping with a man he described as being ‘built like a heavyweight boxer’, saying the pair wanted to ‘tear each other limb from limb’.
The forward punched Juventus team-mate Jonathan Zebina (pic) after a bad tackle in training
At AC Milan, he scrapped with defender Oguchi Onyewu (R) and broke his rib in the process
‘I told Onyewu I did not trash talk, but he just kept on,’ he wrote in his autobiography. ‘He shushed me with his finger. Then he did it again. I saw red. I didn’t say anything, not a word. That b****** was going to find out how I trash-talk!
‘The next time he got the ball in training, I rushed towards him and jumped up with my feet and studs out in front — the worst type of tackle. But he saw me and leapt out of the way. As we both crashed to the ground, my first thought was: ‘S**t! I’ve missed!’ As I got up and walked away I felt a blow to my shoulder. Not a good idea, Oguchi Onyewu.
‘I headbutted him, and we flew at each other. We wanted to tear each other limb from limb. It was brutal. We were rolling around, punching and kneeing each other. We were crazy and furious — it was like life and death.
‘I was stopped by my team-mates, and I suppose that was a good thing. It could have turned out nasty. All the time, I was thinking: ‘S***, my chest hurts’, so we had it checked out. I’d broken a rib in the fight.’
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