Maximilian Ibrahimovic: Ajax’s Unique Talent Beyond Football & His Father’s Shadow

Last updated: Jan 15, 2026, 7:00 PM

“I am my own person and my own player. Ibrahimović is just a name, I am Maximilian. We are both very different,” Maximilian Ibrahimovic replied when asked for the umpteenth time by an employee of Ajax’s media team about comparisons between him and his father. The people of the capital do not have a copy of veteran Zlatan Ibrahimovic brought homebut what can Ajax expect from the new acquisition?

Maximilian Zlatan Seger Ibrahimovic, Maxi to intimates, carries the well-known burden of being ‘the son of’. It is precisely this torment that means that it is certainly not a given that Ibrahimovic junior aspires to a career as a footballer. What’s called.

“I hated football until I was 11. I thought it was the worst thing there was,” the young Swede tells a gathering of Swedish journalists in 2024, when he was called up for the Sweden Under 18s for the first time. “It was completely wrong. I was always compared to my father.”

Despite being constantly pushed against the Ibrahimovic bar, little Maxi ultimately finds joy in the game that took his family to world cities such as Paris, Manchester and Los Angeles. He himself ended up in the youth academy of a professional club in that first city for the first time.

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Zlatan Ibrahimovic takes his eldest son to all the clubs where he plays, from Paris Saint-Germain onwards. The young left winger is being trained in the tricks of the trade at PSG, Manchester United, LA Galaxy, Hammarby IF – of which Zlatan is co-owner – and since 2022 Milan, where his old man plays an advisory role.

And Maximilian Ibrahimovic, who was signed by Ajax on a rental basis with an option to buy, is very pleased with the latter stay. In the same interview from 2024, he indicates that he is not at all concerned with a career outside Milan. “Only AC Milan counts,” he tells the Swedish news. Now that the youngster has left the club where he is taking his first steps in professional football, the question arises as to why Ibrahimovic is leaving ‘the only club that counts’ behind.

Presumably a breakthrough at his dream club was not in the offing in the coming months (or at all). For example, Ibrahimovic was part of head coach Massimiliano Allegri’s match selection this season, but he did not make a debut in the main squad.

The tried and tested coach usually opts for a 3-5-2 formation without classic wingers. Moreover, Allegri is not necessarily known as a coach who gives a lot of minutes to young, inexperienced players. In addition, Ibrahimovic has a formidable competitor in Milan 1 in the person of Rafael Leão.

(Young) Ajax therefore offers a suitable solution. Instead of playing in a competition three levels lower than the first team – promising team Milan Futuro will play its matches this season in Serie D – Ibrahimovic will now make his minutes in the Kitchen Champion Division, in the wake of Ajax 1, and he will train with Fred Grim’s selection. The threshold for a debut at the highest level is simply a lot lower in Amsterdam.

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From left to right: Vincent Ibrahimovic (youngest son), Maximilian Ibrahimovic, Helena Seger (mother), Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Ibrahimovic will not automatically make ninety minutes in the first team every week at Ajax either. Mika Godts may not be Leão, but the talented Belgian logically does not see his place in jeopardy with the arrival of a nineteen-year-old youth player without experience at the highest level. Moreover, Grim has plenty of options in the left winger position, just ask Raúl Moro and Oliver Edvardsen. It is not without reason that the talented Pharell Nash only plays 22 minutes in the first.

Nevertheless, Ajax sees an interesting player in Ibrahimovic. Or, in the words of director of football affairs Marijn Beuker: “Maximilian is a talented attacker with a good sense of position selection in and around the penalty area and he has a lot of purpose in his finishing. He is skilled with his dribbling and, above all, has a great winning mentality and training character. He is a player with a lot of potential and we hope that he can be included in the attack of Ajax 1 in the long term.”

Ajax sees Ibrahimovic progressing to its own flagship. If the youngster is disappointing and does not prove himself against TOP Oss and Helmond Sport, Ajax will send him back to Milan in the summer – an almost risk-free deal for the Amsterdam team.

And so there will soon be another Ibrahimovic playing football on the Dutch fields. No solo against NAC or heel goal against AZ, but first earn his spurs at De Toekomst, Oude Meerdijk and De Vijverberg. And not as Zlatan’s son, but as Maximilian Ibrahimovic, his own person and his own player.