Benjamin Tahirovic #6

Profile

Tahirović’s rise to elite football happened unusually fast. Born in Sweden to Bosnian parents, he went from the lower divisions of Swedish football to José Mourinho’s Roma in the space of only a few years. Ajax then signed him as one of Europe’s most highly-rated young midfielders. But his career has already contained more turbulence than most players experience in a decade. After difficult periods in Amsterdam and Denmark he unexpectedly became part of a public controversy before Bosnia and Herzegovina’s World Cup playoff against Wales, when Sergej Barbarez claimed Brøndby’s Welsh coach Steve Cooper had wilfully conspired to rule him out of the game. Barbarez later apologised to Cooper, who had in fact dropped the player for failing to “live up to the values” of the Danish club, but the episode revealed how important he had already become for the national team at 23.

Key stats