I Am Zlatan: My Story On and Off the Field

I Am Zlatan: My Story On and Off the Field

Daring, flashy, innovative, volatileâ€”no matter what they call him, Zlatan Ibrahimovic is one of soccerâ€™s brightest stars. A top-scoring striker with Paris Saint-Germain and captain of the Swedish national team, he has dominated the worldâ€™s most storied teams, including Ajax, Juventus, Inter Milan, Barcelona, and AC Milan. But his life wasnâ€™t always so charmed.
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Born to Balkan immigrants who divorced when he was a toddler, Zlatan learned self-reliance from his rough-and-tumble neighborhood. While his father, a Bosnian Muslim, drank to forget the war back home, his motherâ€™s household was engulfed in chaos. Soccer was Zlatanâ€™s release. Mixing in street moves and trick plays, Zlatan was a wild talent who rode to practice on stolen bikes and relished showing up the rich kidsâ€”opponents and teammates alike. Goal by astonishing goal, the brash young outsider grew into an unlikely prodigy and, by his early twenties, an international phenomenon.
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Told as only the man himself could tell it, featuring stories of friendships and feuds with the biggest names in the sport, I Am Zlatan is a wrenching, uproarious, and ultimately redemptive tale for underdogs everywhere.

Praise for I Am Zlatan

â€œTerrific . . . Far more insightful than your typical jock memoir, Ibraâ€™s book tells his story of growing up as the son of immigrants in Sweden and pulls no punches when it comes to his opinions of some of the biggest names in the game.â€â€”Sports Illustrated

â€œThe most compelling autobiography ever to appear under a footballerâ€™s name.â€â€”The Guardian
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â€œThe story of Zlatanâ€”from his days as an immigrant kid juggling a soccer ball so he wonâ€™t get bullied to his emergence as the genius player who scored the greatest goal everâ€”is as compelling and fancy-footed as his game.â€â€”Aleksandar Hemon, National Book Award finalist and author of The Lazarus Project

â€œI love this book. I love it because itâ€™s so much bigger than soccer.Â I Am ZlatanÂ is a story of hope and grit and what an immigrant kid who comes from nothing can accomplish with hard work and belief in himself. Itâ€™s also a beautiful window into our new, more open, more diverse world.â€â€”Marcus Samuelsson, bestselling author ofÂ Yes, Chef
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â€œProbably the bestselling European immigrantâ€™s tale since Zadie Smithâ€™sÂ White TeethÂ . . . Once you get past the obligatory snigger prompted by the phrase â€˜footballerâ€™s autobiography,â€™ you can see that Zlatanâ€™s book strangely resembles an earlier immigrantâ€™s tale:Â Portnoyâ€™s Complaint.â€â€”FinancialÂ Times

â€œHe is skillful. He is outspoken. He is Zlatan.â€â€”The New York Times
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â€œThe best sports autobiography in years.â€â€”PolicyMic

From the Trade Paperback edition.
Country USA
Manufacturer Random House
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2014-06-03
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Random House
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2014-06-03
Format	Kindle eBook

I Am Zlatan: My Story On and Off the Field

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