Zlatan's last chance to stride across international stage

Half Bosnian, half Croat, half Swede, half borderless superstar, half council estate immigrant, half team player, half narcissist: Zlatan Ibrahimovic ain't half complicated.

He doesn’t half think he’s worth it though. Aged 34, Ibrahimovic stands on the edge of what might be his last great international hurrah – the European Championships in France, where he lives and plays for Paris St Germain.

“I don’t want to miss Euro 2016. For me, it’s unimaginable to see this tournament without me,” he says.

Three mentions of himself in two sentences. Yet we understand. Euro 2016 would have more about it if Zlatan were there. He is one of the best players on the continent and possesses artistic capabilities well beyond most, including many who have qualified already. Kyle Lafferty isn’t pretending he’s Zlatan.

But the play-offs represent a halfway house and Zlatan and Sweden are half-in, half-out of Euro 2016. Tonight in Stockholm they face the first half of a Scandinavian derby against Denmark that will determine whether Ibrahimovic will be on the sort of stage denied him by Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal in the last World Cup play-offs.

Ronaldo scored the only goal in the first leg in Lisbon and got a hat-trick in the 3-2 return win in Stockholm. Ibrahimovic scored twice, too, but he would not be going to Brazil. Given that he grew up copying the original Ronaldo – Brazil’s one – that will have bothered him.

“I’m really not one to go around all satisfied, thinking, Wow! I’m Zlatan,” he says in his autobiography.

Maybe the book's title: I Am Zlatan Ibrahimovic is ironic.

Swedish record

Those goals against Portugal were number 47 and 48 of Ibrahimovic’s running international total of 59 – breaking a Swedish record that stood since 1932 – but they weren’t quite enough.

And not quite enough is round about where Sweden are as the Danes approach. It’s probably where all eight play-off contenders are.

For some players, including Ibrahimovic, this is potentially the end, the end of the international Zlatan at least. This week's stories linking him with a move to Manchester United, as well as a return to AC Milan, show there is club interest left in the brilliant striker, but Sweden could be saying farewell come Tuesday night in Copenhagen.

Ibrahimovic’s Sweden goals have come against 27 different countries but, perhaps ominously, Denmark are not one of them. Although the bookmakers consider Sweden clear favourites at home, they have not beaten Denmark since 2000, back when Peter Schmeichel was in goal for the Danes.

The two countries have met six times since and Denmark have won the last four. Ibrahimovic has played in all six.

The last time a yellow shirt scored a goal against Denmark was in 2004 – when Henrik Larsson was Ibra's scoring partner – and yet Sweden's coach Erik Hamren said this week: "Denmark are 10 places above us in the world rankings, and they have won the most recent matches between us, but my feeling is that this is our time."

That feeling must centre on Ibrahimovic. He scored eight of Sweden’s 15 goals in qualification.

This in part is why Zlatan has once again been named Swedish footballer of the year – for the 10th time. It is an award he first won in 2005. Freddie Ljungberg had the temerity to win it the following year but since then it has become an Ibrahimovic family member with a place on his mantelpiece. Nine in a row. It’s a Zlatan version of the Old Firm. A remarkable thing is that, as anyone who has read Ibrahimovic’s engrossing book will confirm, he and Sweden had an awkward relationship, especially when Zlatan was a boy, the son of a broken home on the edge of Malmo.

Ibrahimovic felt like an outsider – “brown”, he says. He was a bike thief, a hothead, but he was never a drinker or drug-taker, unlike others in his disjointed family.

His early life could have been penned by Willy Vlautin; but there was always practise. A club career that has embraced Ajax, Juventus, Inter Milan, Barcelona, AC Milan and now PSG – as well as his native Malmo – has led him to a lifestyle where he has his own perfume. Pour homme.

Self-awareness

The last line of his book reads: "It was a fairy tale, and I was Zlatan Ibrahimovic. "

There is some self-awareness there.

For Sweden he has become talisman and captain. Historically they say only Bjorn Borg means more to the country.

This will be cap 110 and it could have been more. There was an estrangement with manager Lars Lagerback in 2006 following a missed curfew. It meant Ibrahimovic went two years without a Sweden goal. Lagerback is now the clever force behind Iceland’s rise. He will be in France next summer.

Will Zlatan?

Austria surprised the Swedes in Group G, Albania surprised the Danes in Group I. So both are on a knife-edge and Zlatan might get cut.

The Danes will say that Christian Eriksen is a bit more than a consolation but you can imagine Ibrahimovic hearing that and looking down that long nose he refers to. Then he would repeat, slowly: “For me, it’s unimaginable to see this tournament without me.”