‘Sweden can conquer like me, but…’

Serie A icon Zlatan Ibrahimovic claims Sweden will ‘probably take over the world like me’ in Russia but ‘feels sorry’ for his country’s ‘manipulative’ Press.

Ibrahimovic is Sweden’s top scorer with 62 goals, but the former Juventus, Inter and Milan striker was left out of his country’s World Cup squad, although they have gone on to reach the last 16 without him.

“I said before the World Cup they’ll go far and they’ll probably win it,” the LA Galaxy veteran told reporters.

Serie A icon Zlatan Ibrahimovic claims Sweden will ‘probably take over the world like me’ in Russia but ‘feels sorry’ for his country’s ‘manipulative’ Press.

Ibrahimovic is Sweden’s top scorer with 62 goals, but the former Juventus, Inter and Milan striker was left out of his country’s World Cup squad, although they have gone on to reach the last 16 without him.

“I said before the World Cup they’ll go far and they’ll probably win it,” the LA Galaxy veteran told reporters.

“I’m very happy, proud to be Swedish, driving around with a Swedish flag. I took over the world, now Sweden are taking over the world.

“Whoever plays against Sweden will have a hard time for sure and I think everybody knows it.

“Racist abuse to Jimmy Durmaz? It’s normal, people follow the wind… just like the Swedish media.

“[It’s happened] all my career, the worst thing is that when you’re Swedish and the Swedish media follow this, they become even worse, but that’s the world we live.

“We just have to ignore these ignorant people, be happy and try to enjoy [ourselves] at the same time, but when you have manipulative people like the Swedish media, it’s very hard but we do what we love, we try to spread our love by playing football and happiness.

“But when you have the Swedish media focusing on the wrong things, it’s a shame because Sweden is a small country, with 9m people, and instead of raising them, making them big, [they’re] doing the opposite.

“But that says everything about them, so I feel sorry for them because we’re happy. They try to sell papers and need us [to sell them]. That’s the way it is.”