A video taken before Saturday night’s pre-season friendly between Manchester City and AC Milan has gone viral.
It featured a frosty reunion between former Barcelona stars Pep Guardiola and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
City manager Guardiola appeared to seek out Ibrahimovic, who now works as an advisor for Milan’s owners, before they shook hands.
Ibrahimovic later shared the clip via his Instagram account alongside the caption: ‘Just a friendly game’.
However, the relationship between Guardiola and Ibrahimovic has been famously unfriendly in recent years.
Barca won four trophies that season – La Liga, the Supercopa de Espana, the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup – and Ibrahimovic contributed 21 goals.
But he and Guardiola were not on the best of terms.
Ibrahimovic later slammed Guardiola in his 2013 autobiography I Am Zlatan, calling him a ‘spineless coward’.
The book also saw Ibrahimovic reveal that he had told Guardiola to ‘go to hell’ and that he did not have ‘any balls’ during Barca’s Champions League semi-final defeat by Inter Milan in April 2010.
Despite their previous bad blood, Guardiola and Ibrahimovic shared a handshake, a hug and a very brief chat at the weekend.
Reacting to the video, one viewer tweeted: ‘Zlatan and Pep looking like awkward exes meeting each other for the first time after a bad breakup’.
One City supporter then wrote: ‘Look how Zlatan can’t keep eye contact. He’s the same guy that called Pep a coward, how ironic.’
