Zlatan Ibrahimovic has opened up talks with Arsene Wenger with his move to Highbury ultimately falling through after already posing with the number 9 shirt.
Undoubtedly one of the greatest strikers of his generation, Ibrahimovic enjoyed great success with a host of top European clubs, including Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Ajax and Manchester United.
He is regularly touted as one of the best players to never win the Champions League, which has eluded his grasp throughout his career despite winning 12 league titles and scoring more than 570 goals in his senior career.
But despite a storied career at the top of football, the now 42-year-old came tantalizingly close to a move from Swedish side Malmö to north London at the start of his climb to the top at the age of 17.
The twelve-time Guldbollen winner (Swedish Player of the Year) appeared for an interview with outspoken Arsenal fan Piers Morgan, in which he discussed the reason why a move to Highbury never took place.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic (pictured) has opened up about his failed move to Arsenal at the age of 17
The move never materialized following his chat with Arsène Wenger, despite him posing in the number 9 shirt
Wenger’s Arsenal side were at the height of their powers in the late 1990s and early 1990s
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“When I was young, I had a lot of interest from many clubs, and one of them was Arsenal,” Ibrahimovic began. on Piers Morgan uncensored.
‘So I came to Mr. Arsene Wenger’s office, and it was a big hype because I saw these players, (Dennis) Bergkamp, (Thierry) Henry, I saw (Freddie) Ljungberg, I saw (Patrick) Vieira , I saw all these players and I thought “F**k, this is big”, because I see these players on TV, even though I already played at a high level in Sweden.
‘But this was big, because this was like, ‘I’m here now.’ Last week I played PlayStation with these guys. And I spoke to Wenger, he was tall, I didn’t expect him to be so tall.
‘I came into his office and we were talking and he said, “What do you want?” He wanted to get to know me, feel me. Because I think he’s a type of person, he just doesn’t buy the player, he wants to know what he’s buying, I think. In the end he had an Arsenal shirt with the number 9 and: “We want you to come and try out for two weeks.”
‘Everything was going well until he said you had to come and do a test. I looked at him. Obviously he’s Wenger, I’m nobody at that moment. I said, “I don’t do tests,” and he said, “What do you mean?”
“I don’t do trials, you want me or you don’t want me, or else why am I here?” I was, but it wasn’t to play a game, it was me. “No, but you have to come and do a test” and then: “No, no, you don’t understand, I’m not doing a test.” That’s it, I never went to Arsenal.’
The striker’s confidence is well documented, with Ibrahimovic often referring to himself in the third person by his first name in interviews and comparing himself to a lion.
At the time of his failed move at the age of 17, Arsenal were enjoying one of the best periods in their history, challenging Manchester United for supremacy in the English top flight.
Ibrahimovic won twelve national titles in four different countries during his legendary top-flight career
The talismanic striker scored 62 times in 122 games for Sweden and won the Swedish Player of the Year no fewer than twelve times
The Gunners won three Premier League titles in seven seasons, from 1997-98 to 2003-04, the last of which was achieved without losing a single match.
In his interview with Morgan, Ibrahimovic also perhaps controversially defended the Glazer family’s ownership of Manchester United, which was regularly protested by fans, with bidders vying to take the club from them.
The Swedish legend suggested it might be wrong for fans to criticize their American owners for not doing what they wanted given the huge spending on players in recent years.
This summer alone, Erik ten Hag’s side signed Andre Onana, Rasmus Hojlund, Mason Mount and Altay Bayindir for £183.2m, while also paying an £8m loan fee for Sofyan Amrabat, with a £21m option to buy .
The Glazers have been a source of contention at Old Trafford since taking ownership in 2005, with fans regularly protesting against them (pictured – Avram and Joel)
Since their debt takeover in 2005, they have extracted more than £1 billion from the club