Zlatan returns as footballers find their voice
Zlatan returns as footballers find their voice
As calls for change in Qatar get louder, Sweden's all-time greatest goalscorer showed a softer side as he came back to the national team
The Week
Lots of people hate the international break in soccer, but not me. For many years now I’ve actually preferred it.
I think it has something to do with how top-level club football has been completely consumed by money. Not that international football isn’t; it’s still the same players playing in structures that ensure that the big teams that bring in the TV dollars succeed, but at least they face the restraint of only using players from that country.
Gone are the days when a club like Scotland’s Celtic could win the European Cup with a team made up of players who had grown up in Glasgow, as they did in 1967.
International football still holds out that promise, no matter how unlikely, and the return of Zlatan Ibrahimovic to the Swedish national team after a five-year absence has Swedish fans dreaming as the European Championships approach.
For over a decade he dominated Swedish sport before quitting international football in 2016, and he returned this week a more humble, chastened individual. He sat for almost an hour and entertained reporters’ question, and even shed a tear when asked what his return meant to his sons, Maximilian and Vincent.
For years he has known that when I start asking questions in English, then the end of the press conference is near, and this time was no different. As I asked the first of them, he started to smile broadly, and I’d sincerely doubt it was because he missed me; it led to this clip that I posted online after the event:
How did he play? He was OK, but Sweden as a whole were a mess, despite their 1-0 win over Georgia. The Swedes will need time to integrate him again, but he did come up with the moment of genius that created the game’s only goal.
The Protests
Elsewhere the footballing world has finally been finding its voice about the situation in Qatar, where the 2022 World Cup finals are due to be played.
The decision to stage the finals there is nonsensical. This is a land with no footballing culture, aside from the billions and billions of dollars that the greedy in the game want access to. Of those who voted to stage the finals there, many have since been revealed to be incredibly corrupt, and the country’s human rights record is appalling.
This week the Norwegian national team decided to protest in their own way about it, ahead of their opening qualifier against Gibraltar. Fans in the country are protesting loudly, and there is considerable support for a boycott of the tournament should their team qualify.
Norway haven’t had a decent national team for over 20 years, but with Erling Håland and Martin Ödegaard they have a very good chance of making it to the tournament for the first time in decades. “Typical Norway,” as one Norwegian FA official texted me during the week - they don’t qualify for anything for years, then just when they come good the tournaments they could go to are being hosted by dictatorships and human rights abusers.
The Norwegians wore t-shirts saying “Human Rights - On And Off The Pitch” as the national anthems were played. Personally, I thought it was a bit lame - nowhere did the t-shirts mention Qatar, for example - but it had the desired effect. A day later Germany - a far greater footballing power - did something similar, and now all of a sudden there is momentum.
What will all this change? Very little. The whole point of Qatar paying millions, if not billions, is to launder their reputation using football as a fig leaf. Other sports get used too and it’s a practice as old as organised sport itself.
If football wants to preserve whatever fast-shrinking shred of dignity it has left, it needs to move the World Cup somewhere else. If it doesn’t, it no longer has any moral authority whatsoever. For all FIFA’s talk of “fair play”, now they have a chance to actually do something concrete about it.
My guess is they won’t.
The Podcast
… this week was on the two subjects previously mentioned.
My friend and colleague Johanna Frändén came to a decision some time ago that she is not going to cover the next World Cup, at least not in the way she usually would. As a Swede and resident of Paris who has covered Zlatan’s career for many years, this week was the perfect time to talk to her about all that is going on, so I did.
The Room Where The Bathroom Used To Be
Since we moved in to our house 10 years ago we’ve been trying to get around to renovating the bathroom, and this week it’s happening. The builders arrived at exactly 0713 on Monday to start ripping out the old one, and since then it’s been early starts every morning - not much fun when Zlatan doesn’t turn up for his press conference on Thursday until almost - or was it after? - midnight, but that’s one thing that he’s not likely to change.
Either way it looks like I’m going to be sleep-deprived for the four or five weeks I’ve been told the whole process will take - by the time this newsletter arrives in your inbox on Saturday, I’ll hopefully be having a lie-on….
Have a great week, wherever you’re spending it…