Zlatan Ibrahimovic recalled to national team at 39: The good, bad and ugly of his time playing for Sweden

Anything is possible in 2021 — even a reverse retirement. The bold, brazen and seemingly unstoppable Zlatan Ibrahimovic recently announced he has been called back to the Swedish team five years after he retired. For the first time since 2016, he will set foot on the international stage - and he will do it at the age of 39.

'JUST TRYING TO IRRITATE PEOPLE IN SWEDEN': Back in November 2020, Zlatan did what he does best — riled people up. He posted an image to social media in his Swedish kit with the caption: 'Long time no see.' But when he was quizzed about whether or not he was pushing to be recalled, he responded: 'No, I was just trying to irritate people in Sweden.'

ENTERING THE DICTIONARY: Zlatan’s journey to becoming the captain of the Swedish football team was marked by resilience and passion. The most successful footballer his country has ever seen, he even made it into the Swedish dictionary in 2012 with the word ‘Zlatanear’, which means to dominate with force.

ROUGH UPBRINGING: Zlatan had a notoriously rough upbringing, as a child of divorce who came from very little and sometimes didn’t even have food to eat. He took a liking to thieving cars and bicycles with his friends for the adrenaline rush. One incident could have ended his career before it began. After his own bike was stolen while he was with Malmo FF, he decided to ‘borrow’ someone else’s, only to discover it belonged to one of the club’s coaches.

YOUTH CAREER: As a teenager, Zlatan began his international career in 1999 for the Sweden U18 team, scoring one goal in four games. The Swede made his way into the U21 team two years later where he played a total of seven games and scored six goals.

REPRESENTING SWEDEN: The striker, whose parents moved to Sweden in the 1970s for a better life, soon had to make a big choice between three nations to represent on the global stage — Sweden, Bosnia and Herzegovina (where his dad is from) or Croatia (where his mum is from). Rumour has it that Zlatan had his eyes set on Bosnia at first, but was rejected for not being good enough. He eventually chose to represent Sweden.

FIRST INTERNATIONAL GOAL: He debuted for Sweden at the Nordic Football Championship in 2001, during a goalless friendly against Tipshallen. He scored his first ever international goal during his first competitive match in a 2002 World Cup qualifier against Azerbaijan, which ended in a 3-0 victory to Sweden.

FIRST WORLD CUP FLOP: Having been called onto the pitch only twice during the 2002 Fifa World Cup, Ibrahimovic failed to make a noticeable impact and Sweden crashed out of the tournament in round of 16 against newcomers Senegal.

GOAL OF THE TOURNAMENT: Known for his showmanship, Zlatan made a splash at the Uefa Euro 2004 when he perfected a back-heel lob to score an equaliser against Italy in the last five minutes of the match. Uefa later named it one of the best goals of the entire tournament.

FOUR GOALS IN ONE GAME: During the 2006 Fifa World Cup qualifiers, Zlatan got on the scoreboard in a big way against Malta, scoring four goals during a 7-0 thrashing of Malta. With a total of eight goals during the qualification campaign, Zlatan was in joint-third place for highest goal-scorers of the tournament. However, Germany knocked Sweden out of the World Cup, again during the round of 16.

BAD BOY STATUS: At the Uefa Euro 2008, Zlatan was called up to a tournament qualifier against Liechtenstein in 2006. But two days ahead, he and two other teammates violated curfew by going to a nightclub. They didn’t consume alcohol but were punished nonetheless; manager Lars Lagerback took them off the fixture. Zlatan was the only one of the three payers to disapprove of the decision, finding it unjust, and protested by refusing to take part in Sweden’s following qualifiers against Iceland and Spain. He also boycotted a friendly against Egypt the following year. He only returned six months after the incident, against Northern Ireland.

O CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN: Zlatan and Sweden failed to qualify for the 2010 Fifa World Cup, finishing third in their group. However, there was good news coming for Zlatan. By the time the Uefa Euro 2012 qualifications came around, he was named captain.

WORLD-CLASS FORWARD: After the Euro 2012, Zlatan was named as one of five world-class forwards in Uefa’s Team of the Tournament selection. He was the only player on the list whose team had been knocked out in group stages. The other names included Italy’s Mario Balotelli, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, and Spain’s Cesc Febregas and David Silva.

ONE-MAN SHOW: On November 14, 2012, he scored all four goals in a 4-2 friendly against England. The fourth goal was a 30-yard bicycle kick that seemed almost miraculous in its nature. He won the Fifa Puskas Award — which reward the “most beautiful” goals in the game — for Best Goal of the Year.

WORLD CUP WITHOUT ZLATAN?: The Swede played his heart out in the qualifying campaign for the 2014 Fifa World Cup but still didn’t manage to make it into the tournament. "It was probably [my] last attempt to reach the World Cup with the national team,” he told the Guardian at the time. "One thing is for sure, a World Cup without me is nothing to watch.”

TOP-SCORER AND RECORD-BREAKER: In the span of one match in 2014 — a 2-0 friendly against Estonia, where Zlatan scored both goals — Zlatan managed to both equal Sven Rydell’s record as Sweden’s all-time leading goalscorer, with 49 goals, and then break that record before the final whistle, reaching 50 goals.

FIFTH EURO IN A ROW: Zlatan helped Sweden qualify for the Uefa Euro 2016, Sweden’s fifth Euro tournament in a row. He scored 11 out of their 19 goals in the qualifying campaign; only Poland’s Robert Lewandowski managed to score more.

RETIREMENT: Zlatan announced that he would retire right after Sweden’s last match at the Euro 2016. A day after his statement, Sweden crashed out of the tournament in the first round thanks to a 1-0 loss against Belgium.

WORLD CUP COMEBACK?: When Sweden qualified for the 2018 Fifa World Cup, Zlatan expressed his interest in re-joining the team, but later blamed the media when he wasn’t recalled. 'The media says they are better without me,' said Zlatan. 'This is the Swedish media mentality. I don't have a typical Swedish name. I'm not the typical Swedish attitude, behaviour and that and still I have the record in the national team … I think it's the biggest party in football, playing in the World Cup. All the best players are there. Zlatan is not there, so… he should have been there. But he's not there.'

HE’S BACK: Now Zlatan is finally back to the national team, days ahead of their World Cup 2022 qualifiers. 'First and foremost he is a very good footballer, the best we have had in Sweden. It's obviously very good that he wants to come back. Apart from what he can contribute on the field, he has incredible experience and can contribute that to the other players in the team,' said Swedish coach Janne Andersson.