Euro 2021, Sweden-Slovakia: Jordan’s flight

Jordan Larsson’s story is that of a boy who he’s been trying his whole life to be himself. Trying to remove the labels they put on it. The first, that of “the son of.” His father is Henrik Larsson, a footballer who spent in the 90s and the beginning of the 21st century for clubs such as Feyenoord, Celtic, Manchester United and, of course, Barcelona. There he is remembered for being one of the protagonists of the Champions League won in 2006, as he came out in the second half and gave the assists of the two goals of the comeback against Arsenal, and Barcelona has now returned as Koeman’s third coach . With Sweden he scored 37 goals in 104 games and was part of the team that achieved third place in the 1994 World Cup in the United States, being one of their references.

The second label Jordan fights against is by his own name. Named for Michael Jordan, whom his father idolized and honored by sticking out his tongue in the celebrations of his goals. When he signed for Spartak Moscow in 2019 his shirt said ‘Jordan’, he even wore the number 23, and the Russian team mounted a campaign around that, but he ended up getting fed up. “At first I thought it would be good, he is a benchmark, one of the best athletes in history, but it was too much for me,” confessed the footballer on RT Sport. Now the name that appears is «J. Larsson ». Jordan does not hate his father, on the contrary, he considers him a model and thanks him for training him as a footballer and as a person, but there is a counterpart. “I have always had to show that I am a great player,” says the forward. Another legend like Ibrahimovic has already pointed to him as the future of football in his country. It is precisely the absence of Zlatan due to a knee injury that has led the 23-year-old attacker to be in the Euro Cup with Sweden. He has only been international on six occasions.