Wednesday 5 August 2009

Ibrahimovic talks about first days at Barcelona

At his first press conference as Barcelona player, Zlatan Ibrahimovic talked about his first days at the club:

"The working atmosphere is great, very pleasant, everybody is taking care of us. I joined Barça because of its history, its way of playing. All the players I have talked with told me positive things.

When you see Barcelona play, you see that nobody can imitate that. That's why it's special to be here. Barcelona has its own philosophy and that's very important.

The history, the homegrown players, the atmosphere and other little details helped me to make my decision. I also talked with Henrik Larsson. He only told me good things about the club and life in Barcelona. He told me it's the best club he had played for and that I didn't have to think twice.

Here you have quality in every position. You have eleven players that aren't just good, they are great. And behind them, you have again eleven players who can do the same thing. In Italy, people think more about defending while here they're thinking about scoring. And if they've scored one, they're already thinking about the second. I think my stay at Ajax will help me to adapt.

I'm not obsessed with wininning the Champions League. If you get obsessed, things go wrong and you don't win anything. You have to keep your objectives in mind, but you shouldn't get obsessed. Barcelona has won the trophy two times in the last five years, so they have experience. We're the favourites to win it, but we want to win all trophies we will play for.

Winning the Champions League in Madrid would be very nice, but we didn't talk about that in the dressing-room. It would be fantastic if we could repeat the treble, but the World Cup for clubs is maybe especially important because we didn't win that trophy before. We have to change history.

Since Barcelona won everything last season, the pressure will be on Real Madrid this year, also because they have spent a lot of money in transfers. Barcelona already has a team in place, that has won trophies, that has a lot of experience, and that's always an advantage. That also allowed them to sign only two players so far.

Over the last days I've talked a lot with Guardiola and that helps me a lot to get integrated and to know what he wants from me. If the coach will ask me to put pressure on the opponent, I will do that, yes, just like Eto'o did. But you cannot compare two players. He did a great job at Barça and I'll give everything for Barça. If the coach wants me to put pressure, that's no problem for me. I just will have to adapt to that. I will do what is needed for the team."

Read more:
Ibrahimovic: "We'll do it like our lives are on the line"
Guardiola happy with Zlatan's training debut

6 comments:

Maygaess said...

this is becoming a mantra to ibra. i hope that people will give him time and space to adapt and succeed.

yuti said...

I just hope he won't whine the whole time about having to run so much like Henry did in his first season. It's a strong guy, so he should be able to work hard and still score his share of the goals.

Anonymous said...

I cant understand why everyone is so obsessed with the "putting preassure on defenders" bit. Zlatan will probably never have the same running kapacity as Etoo did, and therefor he wont be able to put as much preassure at the defenders as Etoo did. Whats better with Zlatan is that he will participate, and improve the game when we are in posession instead of when we´re not in posession of the ball. And if barca keeps the ball about 70% of each game, the positive effects will outweigh the negative.

trez said...

But to get in possession you have to put pressure first...

Anonymous said...

Well, thats kind of true. The high preassure is part of the explanation of why barca has such high possession. But is that impossible to preform with the entire team just because zlatan does not run as much as etoo? And even if the possession drops a few precentages in general, if barcas attacks are twice as leathal, i wouldnt mind.

Anonymous said...

and a player with better ball control and passing means the team will be able to hold on the ball more.

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