Zlatan Ibrahimovic: Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover

Zlatan Ibrahimovic - Train Hard

Soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimovic shares his personal story about defying expectations, and reminds us that we can all reach our dreams if we work hard.

Transcript:

"That I'm very arrogant, that's what I hear all the time. I'm very cocky, 'He has a bad character, a bad personality.' But, when they meet me they're like, 'That image doesn't fit you.' That is what they'll say. You should never judge a person if you don't know him because it's very dangerous. Before 17, I was the last one to be considered to become good. One day, the first coach of the first team, he went out and he saw me in a game. He was like, 'I want to have a meeting with you,' and I was like, 'Okay, what did I do now?'

"Every time I had a meeting was for some kind of disciplinary thing. Then he said, 'On Monday you start to train with the big guys, you are in our first team.' Then, I was like, from considering to be the, not the biggest talent, like, let's say the last one in the group, to jump over all of them and come in the first group. I was like, 'Okay.' I was in shock, because, and I didn't want to say too much, because maybe if I talk too much he will change his mind. I was like, 'Okay, see you on Monday then.'

"When they saw me they saw the player that was different from the other ones. It was a great feeling but at the same time I was like, I have opportunity to do something good out of it, it's pretty, it's up to me. If I want to become something that I think I can become, I have to train hard. That's my mentality, I like to train hard. I mean, you can have talent, but talent don't take you all the way."