PHOTO: Bildbyrån
Olof Lundh has been watching Zlatan Ibrahimovic for many years.
They have also fallen in love with each other several times.
Now the TV profile opens up about the talked about relationship with “Ibra”.
An era has ended when Zlatan Ibrahimovic now decided to put the football boots on the shelf. After 24 years in professional football and playing for nine different clubs, the 41-year-old has had enough and is retiring.
Zlatan’s farewell
“Ibra” has won titles at almost every club he has represented and has been a world player on the pitch and a big profile on the sidelines throughout the 2000s. Someone who had a special relationship with Zlatan through is the TV4 journalist Olof Lundh.
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The TV profile has covered Ibrahimovic for a long time and often had to assume the role of one of the few who dare to ask the “tough questions” to the Swedish superstar. Which has resulted in several dusts between the two of them.
READ MORE: Zlatan’s cheeky joke about the late Mino Raiola makes the whole football world laugh in the middle of the farewell
Lundh on “Ibra”
Lundh admits that he was surprised by Zlatan’s departure from football and now reveals the truth about his relationship with “Ibra”.
– It is true that he has reacted to some things that I have asked about. You have to live with that. It does not mean, as many people think, that I dislike him. I see it as we have different roles and I think deep down he has understood that too. I am full of admiration for what Zlatan has done, then I don’t like everything he has done, he says in an interview with SportExpressen.
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In the past, Zlatan has said to Olof, among other things, that “it will be an extra kick when you get a stomach ache”. But Lundh sees no problem in the fact that he was the one who asked the critical questions to Ibrahimovic, but also thinks that a journalist can get far too “much crap if you say something negative” about Zlatan.
– It’s like it’s only black or white when it comes to Zlatan. Which I think is a bit strange, not least among journalists. As if no one can stand in the middle, but either you have to be a “Zlatanist” and then you can only write the positive and look away from the other. Or you get into some other groove, as Alex Schulman has done in a couple of columns, says the TV4 reporter in the interview.
– I do not want to belong to any side at all, and I am not a racist as some think I am because I have criticized him. And I don’t lick his ass like some others think.
READ MORE: Janne Andersson’s clear demands after Zlatan’s big farewell to the football world: “Was really weird”
There, Olof Lundh directs clear criticism towards the Swedish media in general during the many years of coverage of Zlatan Ibrahimovic as both a footballer and a person.
– It is clear that we have been lame in a way. At the same time as it is terribly difficult considering that he is such a big star out in the world. I think it’s interesting now to look at Norway and (Erling) Haaland, where it’s exactly the same. The enormous greatness of having produced a player who is among the best in the world, while you have to look at the other sides. It is incredibly difficult, he says to the evening newspaper.
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