Capello shows Ibrahimović the way

Zlatan Ibrahimović talks exclusively to Graham Hunter in the latest edition of Champions magazine, the official magazine of the UEFA Champions League. Here, in an extract from that article, the FC Barcelona man discusses the impact Fabio Capello had in turning him into the complete striker.

Ibrahimović reveals that when he first moved to Juventus, he became the pupil, Capello the professor and Marco van Basten the set text: "Capello said: 'You need to score more goals.' From the very first training session he put me in front of the goal and I had to train there every day. Shots, headers, volleys, rebounds, on the ground, in the air – every possible way of scoring a goal. One day he called me to his office and I was like, 'OK, what have I done now?' He told me to sit down and watch a video. I thought it was to show me where I'd made a mistake or should do something differently. But it was a compilation of Van Basten's goals. Capello told me to study everything about him – movement, finishing, timing, the lot. He told me he wanted me to be able to make the same movements and score the same goals."

The current England coach took his time to explain publicly this neat coaching trick, but eventually he went further, saying that the Swede and the brilliant Dutchman shared similar footballing gifts. Capello proposed that given time and the right application, Ibrahimović might emulate or even surpass Van Basten. "When I first trained Zlatan he was a raw diamond, but now he's complete, the best striker in the world and totally unmarkable in the penalty box," Capello argued when the player was at Inter. "I know that comparing Marco and Zlatan is like comparing Pablo Picasso and Mark Rothko, but with so many years ahead of him, such power and technique, it's possible he could even supersede Marco.

"By the time I was coaching Van Basten he was a man, already 27 and a leader. Zlatan has needed to learn and to mature, but he's an intelligent boy and someone whose ability to guard possession, hold off defenders and still see a pass, a space or a shot is incredible. Marco was born with goals in his feet – it was innate. Zlatan's flaw was, or perhaps is, that he's too in love with the ball. He is sometimes keener to do things with it than to score. But since I showed him the Van Basten tapes, it's clear that he plays nearer the opposition penalty box and has taken on board what I told him: he could become a great scorer like Paolo Rossi or Gerd Müller."

Such are the vagaries of football that the teacher was not to benefit from his pupil's improvement. The Calciopoli scandal robbed Juve of both their Serie A titles under Capello. Ibrahimović was sold and erupted as a goalscorer at Inter, where under the discipline of Roberto Mancini and José Mourinho, he cut loose. Ibrahimović's global record for Inter is distinctly better than a goal every other game, the traditional yardstick for a truly world-class striker. Those who doubt his big-match appetite should just recall the Serie A climax in 2008. With Inter needing to win to be sure of the title he came on, after six weeks off with a knee injury, against a stubborn, relegation-threatened Parma in lashing rain, to score both goals and clinch the league. He won three Scudetti on the trot from 2007, along with awards for top scorer, best player and best foreign player in Serie A. "Compliments to Capello, he did good work," Ibrahimović accepts. "He always told me that if you come to Italy it's not enough to play well, you have to score. But I find all of this funny. When I moved to Italy everybody said I was a fantastic player but didn't score goals. A couple of years later, I became top scorer."

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