Ibra: "Guardiola sacrificed me and turned me into a worse player"

Posted Sunday, September 08, 2013 by Marca.com

Ibra:

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has slammed Josep Guardiola in his autobiography, claiming the Catalan coach "sacrificed" him and made him a "worse player", while criticising his former Barça teammates – singling out Messi, Xavi and Iniesta – for acting "like schoolboys" in front of Pep.

According to the PSG marksman, Guardiola totally froze him out: "He wouldn’t even say good morning. Not a single word. He avoided eye contact with me. If I went into a room, he would leave".

As for Barça's philosophy, the Swede states that "Barcelona was a little like being back at Ajax, it was like being back at school. None of the lads acted like superstars, which was strange. Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, the whole gang — they were like schoolboys. The best footballers in the world stood there with their heads bowed, and I didn’t understand any of it. It was ridiculous".

"One of my mates told me: ‘Zlatan, it’s as if Barça had bought a Ferrari and was driving it like a Fiat,’ and I thought: ‘Yeah, that’s a good way of looking at it’", he continues.

The Swede's relationship with José Mourinho, on the other hand, was completely different. "Mourinho would become a guy I was basically willing to die for. He works twice as hard as all the rest. He lives and breathes football 24/7. I’ve never met a manager with that kind of knowledge about the opposing sides. It was everything, right down to the third-choice goalkeeper’s shoe size", Ibra claims.