Brentford defender talks about facing former club Leeds on Tuesday and the pain felt by him and other Malmö fans when Zlatan Ibrahimovic invested in a rival club
“I think I was almost this tall, 1.94m [6ft 4in] but like 25kg [4st] less,” says Pontus Jansson, smiling as he recalls his previous life as a prodigious striker. For an 18-year-old in the academy at Malmö, whose club crest is emblazoned on his right arm, Zlatan Ibrahimovic was a natural source of inspiration but at the start of a title-winning 2010 season, the defender Jasmin Sudic suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury and Jansson was asked to fill in at centre-back. “I was like ‘no problem’ because I was that proud to be in the first team because it was the team of my heart. I could have been the fifth-choice striker for the rest of my career just to be in that team, that was enough for me at the time.”
Related: ‘They needed the money’: Pontus Jansson explains Leeds exit
Written by Ben Fisher
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/09/pontus-jansson-brentford-leeds-united-marcelo-bielsa-malmo-zlatan-ibrahimovic under the title “Pontus Jansson: ‘Bielsa had bad sides but I learned so much from him’”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
