Last weekend, shortly after scoring a hat-trick for Paris Saint-Germain, Zlatan Ibrahimovic returned to Sweden for the annual engagement he has learnt to ink in his diary as a matter of routine. It was the Swedish Footballer of the Year award. The prize has a list of nominees but for seven of the past eight years only one possible winner, Ibrahimovic.
In a country which, as Ibrahimovic describes it, “is a smaller football nation than Portugal”, whom Sweden meet tonight in Lisbon in the first leg of their World Cup play-off, he towers over his professional compatriots. Indeed, he casts a shadow beyond his sport.
A set of Swedish postage stamps is shortly to appear bearing his image. And he is the only individual footballer to have won Sweden’s Jerringpris, a prestigious sports award voted on by the public and usually the territory of soloists, winter Olympians, tennis players or golfers.
The story of the night, six years ago, when he won the Jerringpris is a revealing one. At the ceremony, Ibrahimovic bumped into the former Sweden striker Martin Dahlin. Each asked the other what had brought them to the gala.
Dahlin reminded Ibrahimovic that, back in 1994, the Swedish national squad in which Dahlin played, had been the award’s one-off winners for having finished third at the World Cup in the US.
Ibrahimovic, ever the maverick, responded with what he calls “a little cockfight”.
“Oh,” he said to Dahlin with a smile. “You won it as a team, yes? Well, I am nominated on my own, as an individual.”
Tonight’s contest is about football nations of very different character, one from southern Europe, the other from Scandinavia, but from almost any perspective, it is hard not to view it through the lens of two outstanding individuals.
Or, better put, two of the game’s most brilliant individualists.
Ibrahimovic and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo dominated the build-up. They are undoubtedly each team’s major strength. As Kim Kallstrom, the Swedish midfielder, put it: “Obviously Ronaldo’s going to give us problems. We’ve got to mark him tight, right on top of him, and stop him getting the ball in space where he can turn and set off.”
From the red corner, Bruno Alves, the Portugal defender earmarked to monitor the movements of Sweden’s captain, echoed: “Denying Ibrahimovic space is the key, but we must also make sure he doesn’t get the service he needs.”
The danger, as both coaches have noted, is to become obsessed with one player. But that may also be the perilous condition that Portugal and Sweden have over the last decade gradually fallen into. The reality for both Ibrahimovic and Ronaldo is that in the period they have emerged as two of the world game’s greats, their national sides have declined, developing a dependence on their individualist inspirers.
Nine years ago, at Euro 2004, Sweden were quarter-finalists and only a penalty shoot-out short of making the last four. Portugal reached the final of that tournament.
In those days, Ronaldo and Ibrahimovic were emerging stars, dazzling certainly, but part of teams with other match-winners alongside them, like Henrik Larsson or Luis Figo.
Since then, Ronaldo and Ibrahimovic’s status in their national XIs has seemed to grow disproportionately large. In the Ibrahimovic era, Sweden have not gone as far in any tournament as they did at Euro 2004. They failed entirely to reach the 2010 World Cup.
Ronaldo’s Portugal have not reached a final since 2004, either.
After rickety qualifying campaigns for both Euro 2012 and the 2010 World Cup, they have become play-off perennials.
The Brazil 2014 journey has been full of stumbles: Ronaldo’s three goals rescued them two months ago from 2-1 down and with a man sent off, to beat Northern Ireland.
But he could not help them to more than a draw at home to the same limited opposition, though, nor to take more than two points from two meetings with Israel.
It is pessimistic form, and as Ibrahimovic suggests: “We deserve to go through more than Portugal do.” He notes Sweden finished second in a hard group, led by Germany, while Portugal were second in a softer group won by Russia.
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Tiny Iceland can make big history against Croatia
Iceland’s football team are aiming to make history in their play-off against Croatia, as a win would make Iceland the smallest country to qualify for the World Cup.
If the team were to come through the play-offs, in Reykjavik on Friday night and Zagreb on Tuesday, Iceland would become the first country with a population of less than a million to reach the finals. Lars Lagerbeck, the Iceland coach, said Croatia are the favourites “on paper”.
He added: “But we are going upwards all the time now.”
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MIDWAY
Produced: Lionsgate Films, Shanghai Ryui Entertainment, Street Light Entertainment
Directed: Roland Emmerich
Cast: Ed Skrein, Woody Harrelson, Dennis Quaid, Aaron Eckhart, Luke Evans, Nick Jonas, Mandy Moore, Darren Criss
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
About Okadoc
Date started: Okadoc, 2018
Founder/CEO: Fodhil Benturquia
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Healthcare
Size: (employees/revenue) 40 staff; undisclosed revenues recording “double-digit” monthly growth
Funding stage: Series B fundraising round to conclude in February
Investors: Undisclosed
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The Bio
Name: Lynn Davison
Profession: History teacher at Al Yasmina Academy, Abu Dhabi
Children: She has one son, Casey, 28
Hometown: Pontefract, West Yorkshire in the UK
Favourite book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Favourite Author: CJ Sansom
Favourite holiday destination: Bali
Favourite food: A Sunday roast
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
North Pole stats
Distance covered: 160km
Temperature: -40°C
Weight of equipment: 45kg
Altitude (metres above sea level): 0
Terrain: Ice rock
South Pole stats
Distance covered: 130km
Temperature: -50°C
Weight of equipment: 50kg
Altitude (metres above sea level): 3,300
Terrain: Flat ice
Yemen's Bahais and the charges they often face
The Baha'i faith was made known in Yemen in the 19th century, first introduced by an Iranian man named Ali Muhammad Al Shirazi, considered the Herald of the Baha'i faith in 1844.
The Baha'i faith has had a growing number of followers in recent years despite persecution in Yemen and Iran.
Today, some 2,000 Baha'is reside in Yemen, according to Insaf.
"The 24 defendants represented by the House of Justice, which has intelligence outfits from the uS and the UK working to carry out an espionage scheme in Yemen under the guise of religion.. aimed to impant and found the Bahai sect on Yemeni soil by bringing foreign Bahais from abroad and homing them in Yemen," the charge sheet said.
Baha'Ullah, the founder of the Bahai faith, was exiled by the Ottoman Empire in 1868 from Iran to what is now Israel. Now, the Bahai faith's highest governing body, known as the Universal House of Justice, is based in the Israeli city of Haifa, which the Bahais turn towards during prayer.
The Houthis cite this as collective "evidence" of Bahai "links" to Israel - which the Houthis consider their enemy.
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
