For Spartak Moscow striker Jordan Larsson, the path to carving his way in the football world has doubled as a route to step out of the shadow of his famous father – former Celtic, Barcelona and Sweden great Henrik Larsson.
Henrik became an icon in Glasgow, winning four Scottish Premier League titles; was instrumental in winning the Champions League with Barca, providing the two assists in the 2006 final; bagged silverware in Holland; had a whistle-stop Premier League-winning stay at Manchester United; and will go down in history as one of his country’s greats, helping them to third place at the USA ‘94 World Cup.
For any footballer, Larsson Sr.’s free-scoring boots are no mean feat to fill, let alone for his son.
But since arriving at Russia’s most decorated club without knowing a word of the language in 2019, the 23-year-old has made strides to do exactly that, firing Spartak into contention for the Russian Premier League title, pushing himself up the domestic goalscoring charts and, much like his famous dad, endearing himself to the fierce Spartak faithful in the stands.
His progress has caught the keen eyes of some of his father’s former clubs. Celtic fans have hinted their management should take a punt on the young attacker, and the mighty Barcelona have sniffed around, only for the Catalan club to be warded off with a cool €100 million valuation by Spartak.
RT Sport caught up with the Red-White’s number 11 to talk everything from his father’s influence, playing under maverick manager Domenico Tedesco at Otkrytie Arena, the threat of a Zlatan Ibrahimovic comeback, conquering the Russian language, and whether he really is worth €100 million.
Jordan, tell me how your season’s going, how you’re feeling, what are your expectations?
I’m feeling good. We put down a lot of work with Domenico the coach in preseason and yeah basically ever since he came here we’ve been working a lot trying to get all the different pieces together, and I think last season was a little bit of a struggle you know. He came in in the middle of the season but I think now what you’re seeing this season is a lot of things we’ve been training on since the beginning so I think it all ties up nicely and from my point of view I think I’ve just been trying to help the team by scoring goals and giving assists. I’m happy that it’s going well for me but the most important thing is that we’re winning.
So yeah I’m happy and if we continue to do like this and keep our feet on the ground and just work hard then I think we can absolutely end top three.
Your dad once watched you from the stands in the derby against Lokomotiv, when you scored. What did he say to you afterwards? What were the emotions when you scored and you knew he would see it?
He told me he was proud of me. I’ve been in his shadow for a bit, since he played he was a big player, so for him to be able to see me progress and be able to score two goals against a Champions League team – we was just really proud and really happy to see me be able to do it not just in front of him but in front of my mother and my sister and my girlfriend – you know the whole family was there.
So it was a big moment for me and also it felt like a little bit of a breakthrough for me because in the beginning when I came here I wasn’t playing really well. I was playing in a different position, you know it takes some time to settle in. With those two goals I felt a lot more confidence and a lot more comfortable and from that game I think I started to progress and play better.
So has it been especially difficult to settle in in Russia? How long did it take you to kind of adapt?
It took me a while to be honest. The coaching’s a little bit different if you compare to Sweden or Europe in general. I think not always and in a way I think there are a lot of how you say in English ‘premeditated ideas’ if you understand what I mean about Russia in general. I don’t think a lot of them are true. But in the beginning when I came here we had a Russian coach, he didn’t speak English and he wanted me to play on the right wing. Even though I can play there the way he wanted me to play didn’t really fit my style so it took some time but I think since Domenico came in and decided to play the way he plays it suited me really well and we get on really well and since he came in I started to lift my game and everything started to fall into place there.
And working under Domenico Tedesco, he’s a little bit of a maverick character, a maverick manager. We saw him squirt you in the face with water in the game against Tambov. What’s it like working with him day to day. How does he influence you and inspire you?
No, you know the passion that he brings to all of us I eman before every game gets everybody fired up you know he has incredible speeches before the game and he really knows how to get the most out of his players through his own passion you know delivering that to us to bring it out on the pitch.
Also in the training sessions, he makes sure that everybody in there is 100 percent and gives everything because that’s the way we need to work if we want to be able to win the league and be able to progress so no it’s a pleasure to work under him and he knows a thing or two about football so, no it’s a pleasure.
When you were a teenager you were tracked by I think Man United, a club where your dad played, also there were headlines about Barcelona, about Celtic. How much would it mean for you to get into the Champions League with Spartak and show what you can do with those sort of clubs?
I think for every player it’s a dream to play in the Champions League and like you said there’s been some rumors you know since my father is who he is, but no for me my whole life has been about proving I’m a good player, that I’m my own person you know.
