Despite all the success on the football field, Behrang Safari doesn't really like to be at the center. This time, however, the Malmö FF player shares the spotlight with his twin sons Emiliano and Leon.

In February, the children's book "Stylish Break, Behrang!" Is published by Various publishers. In the book, the former national team player is not a father but a big brother to the boys.

- This book is a way for me to spread knowledge about autism, says Behrang Safari when TT meets him at MFF's stadium.

"Everyone is different"

However, the diagnosis of eight-year-olds Emiliano (Emi) and Leon is not apparent in the book, but only with facts about autism at the end.

- Those who read need not focus on any diagnosis. They just realize that everyone is different and that's great. You will meet so many different people in your life. Everyone works differently and one has to take into account each other. If we had all started to expose our children to that perspective early on, I think the world would have looked different, says Safari.

Autism means, among other things, a reduced capacity for social interaction. A person with autism sometimes interprets things that happen or what someone says in a different way than most others.

- The biggest problem for us has been communication. Especially when they were younger and they didn't talk. Then it was chaos sometimes. We might want the same thing, but it didn't work out. And it was very frustrating.

"World's proudest"

It has not been a matter of course for Behrang Safari and his wife Ivana to publicly talk about the boys' autism. However, questions about the boys, just like dad would become football stars, made the Safari family think again.

- I didn't always know how to respond, but I said, "Sure, absolutely." But somewhere I knew that the boys would not follow my footsteps. It felt like I had to hide them from the public, which is also wrong. I am the world's proudest of Emi and Leon, regardless of diagnosis.

After a long career abroad, Behrang Safari and his family returned to Lund and Sweden in the summer of 2016. Before the MFF's all-Swedish season the following year, in an interview with Kvällsposten, he chose to talk about what it is like to live with children who have autism.

- The idea was to reach out to all parents who end up in the same situation. Because there is so much focus on the negative. The negative thoughts about autism I had for two days after we were diagnosed. No more than that. I want to get rid of autism associated with something negative. For autism is such a small part of my boys, he says, and continues:

- When people hear autism or when they hear that the boys have autism it comes into focus. We reacted the same way when we first heard that they had autism. Then almost Emi and Leon disappeared. All they did was draw us as a parallel to autism. But pretty quickly we said that these are two boys who have a lot of our traits too. This one is stubborn and this one a little more shy. These are traits that all children have. Whether they are diagnosed or not, says Behrang Safari.

"Not like anyone else"

The diagnosis is also very broad, Safari points out.

- When you have met a person with autism, you have just met a person with autism, because he or she is not like anyone else.

TT: Does it change you as a human being to have children with autism?

- They have changed me as a person extremely much. You should not always judge people you meet based on how the people are. We are all so very different - with or without diagnoses, says Behrang Safari.

A normalization of differences is a red thread in the children's book. It was also important to emphasize that no man is perfect, says author Anja Gatu.

“Children are pumped so much with music or football stars that are perfect, but it is very important that children get role models who they are. Here is Behrang Safari. He is the star of Malmö FF now and he plays in the Europa League, but once upon a time he was a child and lay awake in the evenings, thinking about how to be a sweet friend. Just like all children do.

CLIP: Tomasson takes over MFF (January 5, 2020)

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