Ibrahimovic to Guardiola: I'll let you play with fire, but you'll get burned

Former soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimovic has opened up about how the famous rift between him and Josep Guardiola came about while they were together at Barcelona in the 2009/10 season. This is what the former striker did in an interview with Piers Morgan, which will be broadcast late tonight. However, the popular journalist earlier today published an extract from the extensive interview in which the Swede spoke about the current manager of Manchester City.

"I noticed that it wasn't about my performance. I think he was offended because I told him I needed more space and because of the way I wanted to play. That's OK, after all he is the coach and with bad results he leaves and the player stays. I respect that, but be honest and direct with me so we can understand each other. Fourth game on the bench and then I started making noise because it's not OK for me anymore. Then I was on the bench as a result of a situation that I caused not because of myself, but because of the people above him who had made a big investment in me," Ibrahimovic begins.

"When I arrived at the club, the first thing Guardiola said to me was: 'Remember: the players don't come here with their Ferraris,'" Zlatan said in another published excerpt. "In the fourth match, I brought the fucking Ferrari. I knew this would trigger a new situation. So I parked the car in front of his office. You fuck with me, I fuck with you. That was my motto. I told him, 'This is it: if you want to play with fire, I'll give you fire, but you'll get burned,'" he continues. "But, of course, he is the coach, and the biggest punishment for a football player is not to play. Because of course you want to play. But the coach is the boss. However, at that moment I realized that this was not going to be OK. He didn't say anything about my Ferrari because he was avoiding me," adds the former scorer.