PHOTO: Bildbyrån
He is one of our best Swedish footballers ever.
But Zlatan Ibrahimovic hears harsh words from Pontus Kåmark.
The WC 94 hero admits what he really thinks about “Ibra”.
There are few Swedish footballers who can measure up Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He is the top scorer ever in the men’s national team and has achieved so much success in his club teams.
Zlatan’s success
“Ibra” has played for the biggest clubs in Europe and won titles with Ajax, Juventus, Inter, Barcelona, Milan, PSG and Manchester United over the years. Equally large successes did not succeed Pontus Kåmark reach club team level.
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But he has something that Zlatan never managed to achieve and that is a WC bronze with the Swedish national team. Kåmark was part of the WC 94 heroes who became unforgettable in the USA that summer.
Kåmark admits
Both have also played together in the Swedish national team and many years later, Kåmark admits what he really thinks of Ibrahimovic.
– If anyone gets in Zlatan’s way, it’s his enemies. He can kick you down in training and he will do anything to be the master of the block. It can be both good and bad – especially if someone doesn’t accept it. Zlatan is always inventing something because he cannot accept being second – he has to be number one, says Pontus in an old interview with The Mirror.
– You get both parts with Zlatan. He takes up a lot of space and there can be a lot of problems around him, but he can also do things on the pitch that would be difficult without him.
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The WC 94 national team was also known for taking a really tough approach to training. And in the book “Sweden år noll” we learn that the union captain Tommy Svensson was forced to cancel many training sessions because things got out of hand with tough players such as Stephen Schwarz and Jonas Thern.
– Not even Zlatan had survived in our national team, admits Pontus Kåmark in the book.
– I think he had been injured. He could never have behaved the way he did. If you drive that style on the Schwarz, you’re dead. Schwarz had cut him off at the knees. It is not on the map that anyone would have dared to stick up in that way.
READ MORE: Tomas Brolin admits what he really thinks about Swedish football today – and a clear pass to Zlatan Ibrahimovic
A picture of reality that Thern also shares from his time with the national team and above all the squad of players that represented Sweden during the 1994 World Cup.
– For us it was life and death. I got a black eye from Stefan Schwarz in the square. He waited until I came, then there was a duel and then he scalped me instead of the ball. His reaction was: “What the hell are you doing there? You have yourself to blame!”. He didn’t even think he had done anything, says Jonas Thern in the book.
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