Zlatan Ibrahimović, Euro 2008 Star Player for Sweden

By reaching UEFA EURO 2008, where they will play in group D with Spain,Greece and Russia, Sweden qualified for their fifth successive major international tournament.

One of their most important players is Zlatan Ibrahimović, striker born to a Croatian mother and a Bosnian father on October 3, 1981 in Malmö.

He began playing football at the age of 8 for local junior club Malmö Anadolu B.I. At age 10, he moved to rival club FBK Balkan.He made a name for himself at the tender age of ten in a match for Balkan’s 12-year-olds against Vellinge. With Balkan 4-0 down at half time, Zlatan came off the bench and scored eight goals to give his team an 8-5 victory.

In 1995, he signed with hometown club Malmö FF and moved up to the senior side for the 1999 season of Allsvenskan, Sweden’s top-flight league.In the summer of 2001, Ibrahimović officially joined Ajax for a record-breaking €7.8 million, the highest transfer fee ever paid to a Swedish club.In his third and also final season with Ajax, Ibrahimović netted a goal against NAC Breda on August 22, 2003 that was eventually voted the goal of the year by Eurosport viewers.On August 18, 2004, Ibrahimović injured fellow Ajax teammate Rafael van der Vaart during an international match against the Netherlands, which led to accusations from van der Vaart that Ibrahimović had hurt him intentionally. This led to Ibrahimović’s sudden sale to Juventus F.C. on August 31, 2004, for a €19 million transfer fee.Due to David Trézéguet’s injury problems,he quickly made it into starting eleven. Ibrahimović was nonetheless voted the fans’ player of the season in 2004/05, and he finished eighth in the voting for the 2005 FIFA World Player of the Year. On November 14, 2005, he was awarded the Guldbollen, a prize awarded to the best Swedish footballer of the year.

After Juventus got relegated to Serie B, as part of the verdict from the Calciopoli scandal, Ibrahimović signed a four-year contract with Internazionale for € 24.8 million on August 10, 2006. In the following season Inter went on to a record seventeen consecutive league wins en route to Inter’s first Scudetto on the field since 1989, and Ibrahimović was coach Roberto Mancini’s first choice in attack.On September 16, 2007, he played his 100th Serie A match.

Zlatan scored a goal on his debut for Sweden’s under-21 against Macedonia, and represented his country at full international level for the first time on 31 January 2001 in a match against Faroe Islands,and since than scored 18 times in 49 games.

On November 12, 2007, Ibrahimović was awarded the 2007 Swedish Golden Ball as the country’s top player of the year.

At the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Martin O’Neill called Ibrahimović the most overrated player in the world. This is in sharp contrast to the opinion that Ibrahimović holds of himself, he has compared himself to Muhammad Ali and claimed that “only injury can prevent me becoming the world’s greatest player”.On Inter’s official website he is described as “self-critical and instinctive, with great character and a slightly rebellious nature”, and also as “an agile and acrobatic player despite his tall frame”.