The debate reappeared at regular intervals during Zlatan Ibrahimovic's era in the national football team - and continued even afterwards. Was the Swedish world star too big in relation to his teammates and did Sweden become a worse national team because of this?

Albin Ekdal believes that the question has been justified - not least considering what it looked like during the European Championships 2016 where Sweden went out already in the group stage after only scoring one goal in three matches.

- Zlatan was the big star. It was he who would do it, lead Sweden through the clock. Federation captain Erik Hamrén had given him the baton and the rest of us would rely on Zlatan. Our team consisted of a world star and ten decent lyre players around who would help him dominate. That tactic did not work, says the national team midfielder in his summer talk on Swedish Radio.

"Rarely benefits the team"

Zlatan's central role meant that the rest of the players performed worse than usual, Ekdal says.

- Everyone agreed that Zlatan should have the ball as much as possible. It is reasonable when you have a player of that caliber in the team. But relying so much on a single man and thus subconsciously slipping away from his own responsibility does not work in football. No one came up to level or got out of the normal of their capacity.

In his summer program, Ekdal admits that Zlatan's high expectations of other teammates probably had a negative effect.

- Afterwards I have thought. Maybe it was the case that many in the national team were not able to handle Zlatan's demands on his teammates. His gesturing and sharp comments lowered the confidence of some players. I have seen that many times. And it rarely benefits the team in the end.

- Probably there were many who could not cope with his enormous winning skull and temperament, which after all took him to the world's best clubs and made him Sweden's best player of all time.

Harmony after Zlatan

The Sampdoria professional describes the subsequent time - when Ibrahimovic left the national team and Hamrén left his job as national team captain - as completely different.

- If we were a team with a star with a few teammates in 2016, we traveled as a tight group two years later to the World Cup in Russia. Everyone knew what everyone was going to do. We had clear tasks and responsibilities. We were well prepared.

- We were a close-knit gang, full of harmony and confidence.

Ekdal describes his relationship with Ibrahimovic as "quite good" during the five years that both played in Blågult.

- You have to find a way to relate to Zlatan. It took a while to crack the code, but my tactic was to put up a hard fight - be tough and cocky back and not hide and be shy when he started chewing.