Arrigo Sacchi, the former great Italian coach, has a very clear idea of why Zlatan Ibrahimovic failed at Barça.
In 2009, and when he was at the top of his game, Zlatan Ibrahimovic was transferred to “his dream club”, FC Barcelona. The Swede hoped to have a good run there, but in the end he only had a short and disappointing run.
“Ibrahimovic, an alpha male”
“Ibra” did not get along with Pep Guardiola, the Blaugrana coach at the time. His situation with Lionel Messi wasn’t ideal either. So, after just one exercise, he had to return to Serie A and with the feeling of a bitter failure.
Ibrahimovic therefore failed to win among the Blaugrana. And a certain Arrigo Sacchi thinks he knows why. Speaking to Corriere della Sera on the occasion of the release of his autobiography, the former great Italian coach even warned Guardiola about the Swedish star and advised him against recruiting him.
“In 2009, Guardiola called me. He asked me what I thought if he brought Ibrahimovic to Barcelona? I told him that as a footballer there was no debate, it’s a phenomenon. But he was also an alpha male. A guy with a disruptive personality. In Barcelona, he fell into a team of very grown-up children. It was obvious that he was going to have difficulty integrating.”
Sacchi himself had to deal with players with oversized egos when he was coach. This was the case, for example, for Marco Van Basten. The latter also recently criticized him in an interview. On this subject, the vice-world champion coach in 1994 declared: “The things he said hurt me. But I don’t blame him. I don’t feel like I was hard on him. I simply treated and valued him like the others. Maybe he didn’t agree with that. But he never told me. There was no problem between us.”
