The annoying hoopla that surrounded Henry Winter's 'transfer' from the Daily Telegraph to the Times has abated. Today, he interviewed the absurdly well traveled English coach Paul Clement, a man whose public profile is far humbler than his CV.
Winter feverishly sought gossip and insights into the personalities of the game's megastars.
To his great discredit he asked about Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and David Beckham but devoted no time at all to asking him about his time working with Don Givens and the Ireland U21s.
The bantometer was off the scale during his time with Zlatan Ibrahimovic at Paris St Germain. Clement offered a nice take on Zlatan, remarking that the Swede's arrogance was so pronounced that he actually ended up becoming likeable.
He’s so arrogant he’s actually likeable. It’s really sad he never played in England. He would have been brilliant for the game. He’s bright. He’s got a lot of charisma, he’s a gentleman and unbelievable talent.
When Clement departed for an even more glamorous role at Real Madrid, Ibrahimovic presented his coach with a signed PSG shirt.
He scrawled a message to Clement, praising him as a 'great person' and 'an excellent coach' despite the usually disabling factor of his Englishness.
He signed it: ‘Excellent coach, great person, even though you are English’. After the England game, where Zlatan scored those unbelievable four goals and that overhead [for Sweden in Stockholm in 2012], I was dreading him coming back to the club because I knew what was coming. I said to him: ‘Well done Zlatan, you scored four against England reserves!’
Read the article here.
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