Zlatan Ibrahimovic opens up on conversation with Wenger, failed Arsenal move

After posing with the team’s number 9 jersey and discussing the chat with Arsene Wenger that led to the failure of his move to Arsenal, former Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic has opened up.

Undoubtedly, the former Swedish international striker was among the best of his generation.

The 42-year-old has previously played for elite European clubs including Barcelona, PSG, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Ajax, and Manchester United.

Despite winning 12 league championships and tallying over 570 goals in his professional career, he is frequently hailed as one of the greatest players to have never captured the UEFA Champions League.

Ibrahimovic, however, has just disclosed how, at the start of his rise to the top at the age of 17, he nearly left Swedish club Malmo for Arsenal.

Ibrahimovic said on Piers Morgan Uncensored the reason a transfer to the Premier League North London team never happened: “When I was young, I had a lot of interest from a lot of clubs, and one of them was Arsenal.

“So, I came to the office of Mr Arsene Wenger, 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 was like “F**k, this is big”, because these players I see on TV, even if I already played in high-level Sweden.

“But this was big, because this was like, “I am here now”. Last week I was playing PlayStation with these guys. And I spoke with Wenger, he was tall, I didn’t expect him to be so tall.

“I came into his office, and we spoke, and he was like, “What do you want?” He wanted to get to know me, to feel me. Because I think he is a type of person, he just doesn’t buy the player, he wants to know what he is buying I think. In the end, he had an Arsenal shirt with Number 9 and, “We want you to come and do a trial for two weeks.”

“Everything was good until he said you come and do a trial. I was looking at him. Obviously, he is Wenger, I am nobody at that moment. I said, “I don’t do trials”, and he was like, “What do you mean?”

“I don’t do trials, either you want me or you don’t want me, or else why am I here? That was me, but it was not to play a game, it was me. “No, but you have to come and do a trial” and then, “No, no, you don’t understand, I don’t do trials”. That was it, I never went to Arsenal.”