Pep Guardiola and Zlatan Ibrahimovic are two of the greatest individuals football has seen, and while one would've thought their collaboration at FC Barcelona would be a match made in heaven, it became the genesis of an iconic rivalry.
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Guardiola is one of the greatest football managers in the history of the beautiful game, with a lot of his success having been premised on a methodical and systematic way of playing. Ibrahimovic, on the other hand, is one of the most prolific goalscorers of all time, but his achievements have been based on his maverick nature on and off the pitch.
When the pair first worked together in the 2009/10 campaign, it was off the back of both having great triumphs the season before. The Spaniard was able to lead the Catalan giants to their first treble-winning campaign in his initial year as head coach of a top-flight outfit, while the Swede won Serie A and its Golden Boot courtesy of his 25 goals in 35 matches for Inter Milan.
Guardiola was not a massive fan of Samuel Eto'o as his leading frontman, even after he played a big role in their treble success, and saw the Scandinavian as the striker who could propel his team to even greater heights. So, the stage was set for the Malmo native to catapult Barca to unparalleled success after the Blaugrana paid a reported €46 million (R893 million), plus Eto'o, for his services.
For a while, it seemed as though Guardiola and Ibrahimovic were going to be a perfect fit, with the towering forward scoring in his first six LALIGA matches for his new manager. However, their relationship deteriorated quickly after his initial strong start.
In a recent interview with Piers Morgan, the former Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus man claims he started playing badly and felt this was because Lionel Messi was occupying a lot of the spaces he thought he would thrive in. He voiced his concern to Guardiola and the young coach said he would sort it out. What Sweden's all-time top goalscorer didn't know was that by, solving it, his manager would begin to bench him with more regularity.
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This became a theme throughout the season as Ibrahimovic was either left on the bench or out of the matchday squad altogether a total of seven times throughout the 2009/10 league season, something he did not take lying down.
Ibrahimovic claims he tried to provoke Guardiola a few times in order to get a reaction out of him, because by his own admission, the Spaniard was not a confrontational individual when it came to the attacker.
The Swede has claimed he drove his Ferrari Enzo into training on one occasion, something that was banned by the Spanish tactician, and parked it right in front of his office. This was seemingly not enough to evoke a reaction out of his manager, but things came to a head after Barca were eliminated by Ibrahimovic's former side Inter in the Champions League semi-finals.
The LALIGA outfit was unable to turnaround a 3-1 first-leg deficit despite the Italians being down a man for the majority of the second leg after Thiago Motta was sent off early in the encounter. Ibrahimovic later revealed that he threw a training kit box at Guardiola after their defeat as their simmering tensions erupted in that moment.
In his autobiography I Am Zlatan Ibrahimovic, he said: "Guardiola was staring at me and I lost it. I thought 'There is my enemy, scratching his bald head!' I yelled to him: 'You have no balls!' And probably worse things than that.
"I added: 'You are sh*tting yourself because of [Jose Mourinho, then-Inter Milan manager]. You can go to hell!'
"I was completely mad. I threw a box full of training gear across the room, it crashed to the floor and Pep said nothing, just put stuff back in the box.
"I'm not violent, but if I were Guardiola I would have been frightened."
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The rift between the pair had grown too wide and this tension, coupled with Guardiola's instances of utilising Messi as a false nine, led to Ibrahimovic being shipped to AC Milan on loan the following season, where he would continue to add to his illustrious career.
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