QPR had a chance to sign Zlatan Ibrahimovic in 1998, but turned him down because even at 16, Zlatan was very much Zlatan.
According to his friend Tony Flygare, the pair were sent on trial to QPR from the Malmö academy, during Rangers' spell in Divsion 1 under Gerry Francis.
Flygare recounted the tale in his not opportunistically-titled book 'Once, I was bigger than Zlatan', and a summary was recounted in the Daily Mail:
Zlatan was holding on to the ball for too long and the trainer tackled him when he wasn’t expecting it.
For that, Zlatan tackled him back and then told the trainer to 'fuck off'. He went mad at Zlatan.
Being in England was so much different. He just told Zlatan: 'for that, you’re going to breathe through your arse'. I’ll never forget it. We didn’t hear from QPR again.
Zlatan didn’t want to play or stay in England, that is my opinion.
Ibrahimovic almost signed for Arsenal in 2000 - he even met with Arsene Wenger to discuss a potential move to North London. However, he was only offered a trial, to his predictable outrage. He recounted the tale in 'I Am Zlatan':
"So then I waited for him to convince me that I should join Arsenal. But he didn't even try. He never actually made me a serious offer, it was more, 'I want to see how good you are, what kind of player you are. Have a trial'. I couldn't believe it. I was like, 'No way, Zlatan doesn't do auditions'."
In fairness to Flygare, when the pair first came onto the Swedish football scene, he was considered better than Ibra, but he never delivered on his early promise. After failing to find regular top-level football in Sweden, he had spells in the lower reaches of German and Macedonian football before fading out of the game in 2008.
