Guest on the latest episode of '2Legendary with Shedeur Sanders', Zlatan Ibrahimovic spoke about several topics, including which sport he might have excelled in if he hadn’t become a footballer:
"I think I would succeed in any sport that involves a ball. That's 100% certain. American football is a different game, but I think in basketball I’d easily be among the best, if not the best."
Ibrahimovic went on to say:
"I’m speaking honestly. In anything involving a ball, I’d be good. Because I'm an athlete; I can do a lot of things. It’s not arrogance; it’s self-confidence. People might say I’m arrogant, but no, I’m just confident enough: in anything I’d take on, I’d do more than well."
What was your motivation when you were playing?
"When I started to play, in my head, I wanted to be the best, I had big confidence and it was about me and only me. To become the best, I trained very hard and I had this thing at the beginning of my career like everybody was against me, like: 'He's not good enough, he's spoiled, he thinks he's something', because I had a big mouth, but I call it confidence. They call it big mouth... I always say, when you make noise, it means you are doing something good."
Ibrahimovic added:
"So, be confident, keep doing what you're doing. But then at the start, it was not easy, because you are alone against the whole world. In my world, Sweden, where I was born and started my career, it was like you took two steps (forward) and three steps backwards. But, I was training hard, I had a big discipline. I felt I had to do 10 times more than the other guys, and it slowly made me the one I am. So I brought this confidence, because it was very tough where I was born and raised. You had to be tough to make it, and be confident. So, I brought that everywhere. I played, and I got shaped slowly."
Ibrahimovic also had difficulties with coaches. He said the following about that:
"But I also had coaches against me, they didn't believe in me then because I was not the typical Swedish guy; blue eyes and blond hair; I had brown eyes, I had a big nose, I was tall, so everything was different for me. I had to go against those things. But, I think it made me stronger to be honest. Because I had to do much more than the other ones and it kept my drive and my will even higher than normal so i think i opened a lot of doors when it comes to Sweden for people with my background."
