Many football powerhouses, including Arsenal, pursued Zlatan Ibrahimovic before he signed with Ajax, but his meeting with Arsene Wenger didn’t go as he had hoped.

The fact that Zlatan Ibrahimovic has always kept true to himself is something you have to respect.

Given everything he has accomplished in his 24-year football career, which is filled with titles in numerous nations, the Swede’s confidence and borderline arrogance are undoubtedly warranted. The 42-year-old was once a sporting prodigy who dazzled football clubs around Europe with his talent while a youth at his boyhood club Malmo.

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Zlatan Ibrahimovic revealed what Arsene Wenger told him that made his reject Arsenal as a 17-year-old

Arsene Wenger wanted the Swede to do a trial at Arsenal 

During an interview with Piers Morgan, Ibrahimovic revealed that Premier League giants Arsenal were one of those teams interested and that interest went as far as the then-17-year-old Ibrahimovic meeting with Arsene Wenger. He said: “When I was young, I had a lot of interest from a lot of clubs, and one of them was Arsenal.

“So, I came to the office of Mr Arsene Wenger, and it was a big hype because I saw these players, Bergkamp, Henry, I saw Ljungberg, I saw Vieira, I saw all these players, and I was like ‘Wow, this is big’, because these players I see on TV, even if I already played in high level Sweden.” He said the height of Wenger – who is 6 ft 3 in – surprised him before the pair began speaking.

“I came in his office and we spoke and he was like, ‘What do you want?’ He wanted to get to know me, to feel me. Because I think he is a type of person, he just don’t buy the player, he wants to know what he is buying I think,” he continued.

“In the end, he had an Arsenal shirt with Number 9 and, ‘We want you to come and do a trial for two weeks.”

Ibrahimovic was given a number nine Arsenal top with his name on the back of it 

The offer of a trial wasn’t well received by the Swede despite being just 17 years of age, he certainly thought of himself as a player worthy of bypassing a trial which is something he wasted no time with telling Wenger. “Everything was good until he said you come and do a trial,” he admitted.

“I was looking at him. Obviously he is Wenger, I am nobody at that moment. I said, ‘I don’t do trials’, and he was like, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I don’t do trials, either you want me or you don’t want me, or else why am I here?’

“That was me, but it was not to play a game, it was me. ‘No, but you have to come and do a trial’ and then, ‘No, no, you don’t understand, I don’t do trials’. That was it, I never went to Arsenal.”

Ibrahimovic instead joined Ajax in 2001 before playing for some of Europe’s biggest clubs including Juventus, Inter Milan and Barcelona. Before his retirement, he did finally make his Premier League debut in 2016 but it was with Arsenal’s bitter rivals, Manchester United.