Zlatan Ibrahimovic Talks Jose Mourinho, Wayne Rooney and Silencing His Critics

Paris Saint-Germain's star striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic sat down with The Guardian's Donald McRae days after his 33rd birthday for a detailed interview, giving fans a glimpse into the mind of one of football's most talked about players.

The well-travelled Swede has won silverware all over the European continent, but he told McRae perhaps the greatest trophy of them all is the satisfaction of proving wrong his doubters:

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So how did this punk from Rosengard get all the way to where I am now? Nobody believed I could do it. Everybody was trash-talking. They thought I will go away because I have a big mouth. They thought this guy’s vision is crazy. It will not happen. But I had these dreams of where I would end up. And now here I am.

Let’s go back 15 years and all I saw then has come true. Everybody who was trash-talking me? Now they are eating their words. This is my real trophy.

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The star striker rose to prominence in the Dutch Eredivisie with Ajax after starting his career with Malmo, but it wasn't until he moved to Italian giants Juventus in 2004 that the world was introduced to the sensational talent that was Ibrahimovic.

He left the club in the wake of the Calciopoli scandal and signed with bitter rivals Inter Milan, winning three national titles before moving to Barcelona. His time in Spain was brief, but it did deliver a La Liga title, before the Sweden international moved back to Italy to join AC Milan.

PSG was his next stop, and Zlatan appears to have found the one place where he wishes to stay. When asked about a potential move to the Premier League, he immediately ruled out another transfer:

"No. I am happy in Paris," he said. "I respect the Premier League. It’s one of the best in the world and no other league has this media interest. But I’m happy I’ve played in so many different leagues."

International glory has always eluded him. For all of his success, Ibrahimovic has never won the UEFA Champions League, and his chances of ever making a difference at the World Cup are small due to the lack of talent the Swedish national team currently fields.

That didn't stop him from travelling to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup, however. He watched England play Uruguay, and he revealed it was difficult for him to watch the English team lose, as he is sympathetic toward Wayne Rooney:

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It was a very good game but it’s so difficult for England. They have so much pressure on them. Everybody [in England] expects them to win the World Cup.

I do like [Wayne] Rooney. For me he has a lot of hunger when he plays. I think he’s good for the team. The rest? I cannot judge them because I don’t know them.

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Over the course of his wonderful career, he has become more than just a great football player. Ibrahimovic is an icon, insanely popular in Sweden and just about everywhere else. There aren't many rival clubs who would send a player this kind of message on his birthday, via Bleacher Report UK:

Despite his insistence he won't be moving to the Premier League, he remains a big fan of Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho. The two worked together at Inter Milan, and Ibrahimovic praised his intelligence working with different players:

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Mourinho is very intelligent. He doesn’t treat everybody the same. He knows how to treat people as individuals to get 100% out of them.

(On whether he's the most intelligent coach he ever played for) Yes. In the way he approaches players and – ‘manipulates’ is the wrong word – gets them very pumped up? No doubt.

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Ibrahimovic will undoubtedly go down as one of the greatest players of our time, thanks to his penchant for scoring spectacular goals. A perfect example of that was a match against England in 2012, in which he scored four goals.

The last is one fans will never forget, an outrageous bicycle kick from well outside the box. Once again, it were the critics who drove Zlatan to greatness that night:

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I take risks in the way I play so sometimes it doesn’t look ‘wow’. But then came England. They were saying the same thing about me but I just said it will be fantastic – the first match in our new stadium. The first goal came and I was happy. When the second came I was crazy. And when the third went in I looked around. ‘OK, what will you say now?’ With the fourth, the bicycle-kick, I thought, ‘That’s it. I don’t know what more I can do.’ Even if you live in England I have to say it gave me an extra-special feeling.

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The 33-year-old Swede may be closer to the end of his magnificent career than the start, but he's still going strong. He still chases that elusive Champions League title, and with five goals in six appearances in 2014-15, per WhoScored.com, he's still one of the most effective forwards on the planet.

The son of a Bosnian immigrant who grew up in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Malmo is now one of the biggest sports stars in the world. And yet, despite everything, it's still the handful of critics that drives him toward greatness each and every day.

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