Zlatan Ibrahimovic is an anomaly - the kind of player and person who refuses to be pinned down, categorized, understood.
A video released today by the World Food Programme is the perfect demonstration of Zlatan as a study in contrasts. For several days now, Zlatan has been teasing some big news: releasing cryptic photos to his Instagram account, ripping off his shirt in celebration during a PSG match to reveal a torso tattooed with what looks to be the entire Paris phone directory:
Zlatan before (left) and after (right) (Photo: @LaSouz | Twitter)
One might have concluded, based on...well...based on Zlatan being Zlatan, that the new tattoos were some kind of stunt - fueled, perhaps, by the same impulse that in the past has led Zlatan to refer to himself (jokingly?) as "Jesus." PSG supporters likely found themselves torn, feeling somewhere between entertained (after all, who else but Zlatan would plan a publicity stunt that relied entirely on his ability to score a goal within a Ligue 1 match) and dismayed (the resulting yellow card Zlatan received means he will miss PSG's fixture versus Monaco in two-weeks' time).
But, if we know Zlatan at all by now (which, trust us, our resident expert Sam Klomhaus does), we know that Zlatan's motives are never as simple as you think.
Indeed, as we scrolled /r/soccer, one of the first stories to catch our eye today was the one announcing the "story behind Zlatan's tattoos." Which we clicked on immediately, because, of course we did.
What we found waiting for us was a 3 minute video, released by the World Food Programme, explaining that the 50 names tattooed (temporarily anyways) on Zlatan's torso are in fact a symbolic gesture intended to draw the public's attention to the plight of the 805 million people worldwide suffering from hunger. Here is the video in full:
We don't know about you, but immediately after watching this we found ourselves thinking, "Well done, Zlatan. Well done." Something about the halting, deliberate cadence of Zlatan's voice in the video gives power to the words he delivers:
"My name is Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Wherever I go, people recognize me. Call my name. Cheer for me. But there are names no one cheers for: Carmen, Rahma, Antoine, Lida, Chheuy, Mariko. If I could, I would write every single name on my body. But, there are 805 million people suffering from hunger in the world today. Too many of them are children. They are struck by war, natural disasters, and extreme poverty. I have supporters all over the world. Beginning today, I want this support to go to the people who really need it. So, whenever you hear my name, you will think of their names. Whenever you see me, you will see them."
And so, today, we find ourselves glad that Zlatan is Zlatan: a player and a human who refuses to conform - even if at times this means we have to grimace at the needless drama this creates. Because, when that drama points our eyes in the right direction, it has the potential to do something big.
You can learn more and support the United Nations World Food Programme and Zlatan Ibrahimović’s fight against hunger at http://WFP.org/805millionnames
