Widely regarded as one of the world’s best players, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has quietly started building quite an empire off the pitch, too. With a successful clothing brand ‘A-Z’ already under his belt, the Manchester United star is adding to his existing line of fragrances with the release of two new scents this May. To celebrate the launch, we sat down with the most confident man in football to talk success on and off the pitch, style icons and the one player he would have liked to line up alongside (if we take Zlatan out of the equation, of course).

FashionBeans: Why did you want to release a line of fragrances? Zlatan Ibrahimovic: It was a new world, and to be honest I wasn’t initially confident about it. I didn’t think I could make my own fragrance. But it’s like football, it’s like business: when you meet the right team, magic can happen. I met some fantastic people, who presented a new world to me. This team were so confident that they could do something real with me properly involved, and that they could bring it out in a fragrance that would genuinely be a fantastic, luxury product. So I said OK, let’s try. We got Olivier [Peschaux, the perfumer behind Paco Rabanne’s blockbuster 1Million as well as for Christian Dior, Diptyque, Balmain, Paul Smith and YSL] on board. I work only with the best. Everything we’ve created so far, I’m proud of. It feels real for me because every fragrance has its own story that was inspired by me. So it’s not like I put my name on the bottle and then that’s it. I don’t need my name out there on something that is mediocre. Do you have a complex grooming routine to keep your skin looking great at 35? God made me the way I am, so I feel good like I am. I don’t have this complex that I need to change things or make myself better. I don’t have time for grooming routines, so I don’t need one. No, I’m good as I am. It’s all natural.