Shocking Statistics Between Ibrahimovic And James Vardy


The Community Shield always pits the Premier League champions against the FA Cup winners. The 2016 version also brings the past two title-winning managers, Claudio Ranieri and Jose Mourinho, to the dugouts, rivals whose careers are inextricably linked and men who have often succeeded each other.
And, on the pitch, it brings a comparison between the men anointed the outstanding individuals in France and England last season. Zlatan Ibrahimovic was named Ligue 1 Player of the Year for the third time. Jamie Vardy was voted Footballer of the Year in the Premier League. The bare facts may suggest similarities. Virtually everything else, from their styles of play to their career trajectories to their trophy collections, indicates they are stark opposites.
Vardy embodies Leicester, the champions with lowly roots. Ibrahimovic is the epitome of Manchester United, with their marked fondness for the rich and famous. It is as difficult to imagine the Foxes signing the Swede as it is to envisage Vardy arriving at Old Trafford, instead of the King Power Stadium, in 2012.
Vardy's most obvious attribute is his searing pace. It is perhaps the only quality Ibrahimovic lacks. The Englishman ignores weights to fashion a sprinter's physique. The Swede has the build of a target man and the touch of a technician. Vardy's speed is ideally suited to the counter-attacking gameplan that Ranieri deployed; Ibrahimovic's teams are never permitted such space behind opposition defences because they are invariably favourites. Even Pep Guardiola signed him to add an extra dimension to a Barcelona attack that encountered massed ranks of opponents camped around their penalty box.
And when Ibrahimovic joined Barcelona, Vardy was playing for Stocksbridge Park Steels. The United No. 9 is 63 months older than his Leicester City counterpart, but that is far from the only reason. The Swede was earmarked for greatness from an early age, fast-tracked -- despite his lack of pace -- to the summit of the game. The Englishman is the speedster who took the long, rambling route to the top. His international debut came at 28, Ibrahimovic's at 19.
Consider where they were at equivalent stages of a career. When Vardy was 22, he played in England's seventh tier, the Northern Premier League Premier Division, for Stocksbridge. When Ibrahimovic was 22, he joined Juventus.
Vardy had scored one top-flight goal -- against Manchester United -- before he turned 28. When Ibrahimovic celebrated that birthday, he had 131 to his name. He has since added 171. Vardy has scored 50 times for Leicester. Ibrahimovic recorded 50 last season. He has 454 career goals for club and country. Vardy, excluding his non-league strikes, has just 54. There are just over five years between them, but also 400 goals.
It underlines the scale of the body of Ibrahimovic's work. He is both Sweden and Paris Saint-Germain's record scorer, even though more than 60 percent of his career appearances have come in other shirts. He is football's most consistent wanderer, the most successful player of his generation in domestic leagues. He has won 13 league titles in 15 seasons, even if the two Juventus claimed in 2005 and 2006 were revoked due to the Calciopoli scandal. Vardy has won one, but it ranked as the greatest upset in English football history.
And it underlines a fundamental difference. Ibrahimovic has specialised in averting surprises, in ensuring the club with the greatest resources and the best players won the title. Vardy sprung a seismic shock. The 29-year-old brought drama. The 34-year-old has lent stardust wherever he has been.
Ibrahimovic is royalty, but he has been surrounded by aristocracy throughout. Perhaps no player in footballing history has had as many top-class team-mates: a comparatively brief list must include Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry, Carles Puyol, Gerard Pique, Dani Alves, Yaya Toure, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Angel Di Maria, Thiago Silva, Edinson Cavani, Marco Verratti, Clarence Seedorf, Alexandre Pato, Robinho, Andrea Pirlo, Gennaro Gattuso, Alessandro Nesta, Filippo Inzaghi, Javier Zanetti, Walter Samuel, Hernan Crespo, Patrick Vieira, Esteban Cambiasso, Fabio Grosso, Luis Figo, Gianluigi Buffon, Gianluca Zambrotta, Fabio Cannavaro, Lilian Thuram, Alessandro del Piero, David Trezeguet, Pavel Nedved, Emerson, Henrik Larsson, Wesley Sneijder and now Wayne Rooney, Anthony Martial, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, David De Gea and, probably, Paul Pogba.
He may have fought internal battles to be recognised as the alpha male, but Ibrahimovic is comfortable in the company of luminaries. Vardy was a stranger to them until comparatively recently. Vardy may stem from the working classes but, by winning the league in a group that included Danny Simpson, Marc Albrighton, Wes Morgan and Leonardo Ulloa, he led the peasants' revolt.
Ibrahimovic departed Paris Saint-Germain with a tweet declaring: "I came like a king and left like a legend." When Vardy's time at Leicester finishes, he will go as a Foxes legend. He arrived as a mixture of a nobody and a curiosity. He was the first non-league footballer ever to command a £1 million fee when he joined from Fleetwood in 2012. It made him a record-breaker in the transfer market.
So was Ibrahimovic. Until PSG signed Di Maria from United in 2015, Ibra was the most expensive player ever in terms of cumulative cost. Between them, Ajax, Juventus, Inter Milan, Barcelona, AC Milan and PSG have spent £143.7m to acquire his services. United got him without paying a fee so the irony is that when they meet on Sunday, Vardy will have cost his current club more in the transfer market.
The Swede could have gone for more. In his position, Ibrahimovic surely would have. Instead, Vardy repelled Arsenal's advances this summer. Indeed, Arsene Wenger's interest in him was firmer than it was when Ibrahimovic, in his formative years, was only offered a trial, which he duly rejected. The consequence is that Vardy will remain at Leicester for a fifth season: it is longer than Ibrahimovic has stayed anywhere.
He has become football's most decorated mercenary, forever chasing another achievement and another move. He is Zlatan, the man who created a mythology around himself. Vardy, improbably, is the subject of a Hollywood scriptwriter's attention, his homespun loyalty burnishing his image as the down-to-earth superstar, Leicester's everyman, while Ibrahimovic injects United with the glamour of a great. They share a Wembley pitch on Sunday and an appetite for goals, but they differ in far more.