28 April 2023 , 09:51
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Zlatan Ibrahimovic came through the door at Old Trafford with all the bravado you'd expect - demanding improvements and reminding the squad they play for one of the biggest clubs in the world in Manchester United.
That's according to his former teammate Marcos Rojo, who has opened up on what the Swede was like behind the scenes at Old Trafford in a wide-ranging interview, in which he also takes an astonishing swipe at Harry Maguire.
Ibrahimovic joined Man United as a free agent in 2016 during the Jose Mourinho era. He put pen to paper on a one-year deal with the option of the contract being extended for a second year based on his performance.
Rojo, who described Ibrahimovic as "a winner, an animal, as he says, a lion", claims the forward arrived at United all guns blazing and at the half-time break of a game the Red Devils were drawing, made his feelings clear to the dressing room.
"He appeared in the group on a Friday, he had trained one day and we travelled," Rojo told TyC Sports.
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"He started the game and scored an incredible goal. They tied us and they were hitting us with balls. He came in firing: "You don't play football like that, this is a big club!"
Zlatan Ibrahimovic arrived at Old Trafford with all the bravado you'd expect (TT News Agency/Press Association Images)"This guy arrived 10 minutes ago and he's already screaming. [Wayne] Rooney and [Bastian] Schweinsteiger were there... nobody said anything to him. And I was thinking: 'Whoa, this is very spicy.'"
Rojo and Ibrahimovic had a mutual friend in Ezequiel Lavezzi, who the former knows from the Argentina set-up and latter played alongside at Paris Saint-Germain, and struck up a good relationship as a result.
But the pair did come to blows at one point during their time together as teammates, with Rojo recalling a dressing room spat.
Rojo said: "In a game, he got heated and I answered him. I started b****ing about him. We both started to argue. The first half ended and we went to the dressing room. I said: 'No, now I have to go in and see what he does', you saw. I was ready.
"I tell him: 'You stop yelling at me', he told me, 'No, you pass the ball to me, play forward'. He came and everyone stopped, I stopped too, but I was saying: 'Grab this one', then Mourinho came in furious, he started kicking everything.
"The next day I was having breakfast, and he came, grabbed me from behind the neck and we started to laugh."