Zlatan Ibrahimovic is known for his blunt comments, but the maverick striker's agent revealed that he was so close to punching ex-Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola during his one year stint at the Catalan club.
Barcelona bought Ibrahimovic for a fee of 59 million pounds from Internazionale, they also cashed in their star striker Samuel Eto'o as part of the deal. Many of the football pundits marked the striker to be a big success at Barcelona, but the Swedish striker couldn't prove his worth because of lot of misunderstandings and rifts with the club's treble-winning coach Pep Guardiola. During his one-year spell at Barcelona, Ibrahimovic managed to score 22 goals in 46 appearances.
There were rumors that Ibrahimovic lashed out at Pep during a dressing room outburst and threw a training kit across the room. Reporters claimed that Guardiola refused to speak to the striker and loaned him back to Italy.
Barcelona presidential candidate Josep Bartomeu spoke about his friendly relationship with Ibrahimovic's agent Mino Raiola, who is also the agent of French starlet Paul Pogba. According to Marca, Bartomeu stated:
"I know agent Mino Raiola very well having negotiated with him before,"
"I dealt with him over Zlatan Ibrahimovic in 2010, for instance. I had many meetings with Mino. In one, he told me: 'Ibra will punch Pep one of these days.'"
Even though Bartomeu's tone was not serious, the threat made by Ibra might have been true because of his relationship with Guardiola. Ibrahimovic made some inappropriate comments about Pep Guardiola in his autobiography. a quote from his book read: "If Mourinho lights up a room, Guardiola draws the curtains"