fat_tony said:
sadomin!
i live in malmoe, where zlatan grew up. any foreigner here dont see theirself as swedes, just cause they grew up here does not make them swedes okey, everybody knows their roots and stick to their roots, zlatan says he is swede beacuse if he didnt say so then the swedes would be angry with him okey. name any swede who is so famous that if you ask a kid in brazil, india, african countries to name a swede you will not find such. swedish players come to a certain level and then stops. zlatan is not a swede, he does not have a swedish style of playing, his parents are far from being swedish. he is just a foreigner who grew up here and has great talent. dont come to me and compare swedish players with top italian,spanish,english,brazilian and argentine players okeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy.
I'd say I'm more or less in the same position as you are. I live in Stockholm, I'm a so-called foreigner who's been raised in the so-called foreigner "ghettos" of Stockholm. Guess what? I consider myself Swedish, even though I've also been raised with my parents' language and culture. Hey, I'm not even born here as Zlatan is but Sweden is the nation which has formed me and Sweden is the nation I've learnt how to play football in. Thus, on that aspect, I am Swedish. Ibrahimovic has been taught how to play football in Sweden, he's played for Swedish clubs (yes, even that FC Balkan club he played for as a kid is Swedish, just as Assyriska is) and he represents the Swedish national team. Judging by your logic, players like Vieira and Zidane are not French.
I've also never compared Swedish players to "top italian,spanish,english,brazilian and argentine players". That is nonsense. Sweden is obviously way behind those nations in terms of individual player skill and on club level. Ibrahimovic is the only world-class player Sweden has, we both agree on that. However there's reason a player like Henrik Larsson has won the European Golden Boot and that a player like Ljungberg was one of Arsenal's most important players a few years ago, which he also showed by scoring against our very own Juventus. Neither of those two can be called world-class today, but they've still been on that level or near it during the last couple of years. Isaksson is a player who'll probably be going to better club soon. He's proved himself on the highest international level and also played for Juventus when he was younger, which must've ment the bianconeri saw potential in him.
Apart from the Swedish players today, ask the Fiorentina fans if they've forgotten about Kurt Hamrin. Ask the Milan fans if they've forgotten the Gre-No-Li triad. And also, if Swedish football is about running, they must be doing it extremely well,
running Italy out of the Euro 2004 and winning the group of death WC 2002.
Sorry for going off-topic.
EDIT - Also take a look at this. Top goalscorers in the Serie A history. Count the forgettable Swedes.
Player Goals Matches
1. Silvio Piola 274 537
2. Gunnar Nordahl 225 291
3. José Altafini 216 459
Giuseppe Meazza 216 367
5. Roberto Baggio 205 452
6. Kurt Hamrin 190 400