How Henrik Larsson became the King of Kings

Larsson’s rise began outside a housing estate on the outskirts of Helsingborg in the south of Sweden. It was there he learned how to play football, but as the son of a Cape Verdean father and Swedish mother, he faced discrimination.

"In this estate, I was the only one with a darker complexion. I had a few fights here," he told The Guardian. "If they call you [the N-word], or something else, I used to hit them. I think that mentality comes from home. You have to stand up for yourself. It wasn’t an easy upbringing. But you have two options: you lay down and cry or you get on with it. I chose the second option."

His upbringing may have forged an impenetrable inner armour, but with his funky dreadlocks and tongue-out celebration, Larsson played with the air of a carefree bohemian. His real breakthrough came in his early 20s at Helsingborg in the second tier. After helping them earn promotion and excelling in the top-flight, his spectacular goal record caught Feyenoord’s attention, and they signed the 22-year-old in 1993.

"Grasshoppers from Switzerland showed interest," he told ElfVoetbal. "They came here and we had a good conversation. A great opportunity abroad. But suddenly my agent called. I had to wait. Feyenoord’s player agent Jan Mastenbroek had contacted me. They really wanted to sign me.

"That choice wasn’t difficult. Dutch club football was competing at the highest level in Europe and Feyenoord had just become champions. I rated Feyenoord higher in every respect. I watched the European Cup match against Porto (November, just before he signed) at De Kuip. Mike Obiku and John van Loen were playing up front. I had to displace one of them. I immediately experienced the atmosphere of a full stadium... With my transfer, a dream came true."

Wim Jansen, who signed Larsson, left shortly after his arrival due to a dispute with the club, so it took time to get up and running in Rotterdam. Managing just one goal in his debut season, he found the European Cup Winners’ Cup more fruitful in his second, scoring frequently on Feyenoord’s road to the quarter-finals.

But despite Larsson's frequent appearances and improving goal record, things turned sour under Arie Haan. Feyenoord couldn’t match Ajax and PSV in the league but won two Dutch Cups. "On the pitch, I never felt completely happy at Feyenoord; off the pitch, they were wonderful years that I wouldn't have wanted to miss," Larsson said.

In his fourth year, he grew frustrated with constantly being substituted and decided to leave. A move to Dick Advocaat’s PSV was denied because of Feyenoord’s demands, but they refused to stand by an agreement allowing him to join a foreign team for a smaller fee. He took the Rotterdam side to a tribunal and won, clearing the way for a £650,000 transfer to Celtic in July 1997.

Four years on from their time together at Feyenoord, Jansen had just been appointed Celtic manager and wanted to reunite with the Swede right away. "Larsson was the No.1 player in Dutch football that he wanted," Celtic general manager Jock Brown said at the time. "He is a Wim Jansen man through and through."

It was part of a big overhaul. The Glasgow giants were petrified: Rangers had just won a ninth consecutive league title and were singing about an imminent 10th. Celtic couldn’t face such humiliation.

"At the time, going to the Scottish league was seen as a step back," Larsson said on the Stick to Football podcast, adding: "I came in as Pierre van Hooijdonk’s successor and had a fantastic time there. At Celtic, too, I put the team's interests first. I always tried to do my best and worked hard every game."

About to turn 26 and still unproven, Larsson was far from being hailed as the saviour. Fans thought they had signed a flop when the Swede came off the bench and gave away the winning goal to Hibernian in his first league match. He scored his first – a diving header – against St Johnstone three weeks later, but that was quickly followed by an own goal in a European qualifier against Tirol. Still, the new signing was fantastic, playing a key role in four goals as Celtic won 6-3.

"My own goal was unbelievable, and after making Chic Charnley such a big man in Scotland because of my mistake which let him win the first league match for Hibs, I didn’t want to go out of the UEFA Cup because of my mistake," he said. "I saw the large headlines saying: ‘Larsson knocks Celtic out of Europe!’ and I didn’t want that."

A steady stream of important league goals followed, including both in a 2-0 win against Aberdeen, an eventual winner against Hearts and the opener in a narrow win over Kilmarnock. In the last game of the season, Larsson scored the first against St Johnstone – his 16th in the league – as the Hoops finished two points clear of Rangers and ended their domestic misery. It was the second trophy Larsson won in Scotland, having also netted in the League Cup final win over Dundee United.

Jansen left at the end of the campaign and coach Jozef Venglos replaced him, but the next season was a miserable one for the Bhoys. Despite Larsson’s 28 league goals – including three in Old Firm derbies - Rangers won the league with a six-point lead.

Larsson was dazzling in cup competitions, too. On their path to the Scottish Cup final, the likes of Larsson, Mark Viduka, Paul Lambert, Johan Mjallby, Reggie Blinker and Craig Burley travelled to Greenock for a quarter-final tie against second-tier Morton. After an elegant goal from Viduka nine minutes in – his first for Celtic – it was evident they wouldn’t have to get out of first gear. Morton managed to prevent any further damage until the hour mark, when Larsson flicked the ball over Paul Fenwick and, perfectly anticipating the defender’s attempted header back to Ally Maxwell, casually knocked it over the goalkeeper. Larsson's class was on display again towards the end when he collected a pass in the box, turned and smashed it towards goal. It hit Viduka and went in to make it 3-0.

Standing in the front row of the Cowshed on that cold and wet midweek March evening, struggling to see over the wall, was this writer. At seven years old, I was already realising that Morton weren't world-beaters, but I left the stadium aware that I’d just witnessed a different class of football in front of my eyes. My boyhood heroes had been easily swept aside. I haven’t seen a better team play at Cappielow - certainly not a better individual than Larsson.

Larsson won many individual prizes for his exploits that season, including the first of four Scottish Premier League Golden Boots, even though Rangers won the treble.

Offers came in, as he told The Guardian: "I had an opportunity to go to Manchester United in the 1990s from Celtic. I would have earned more, maybe £10,000 or £15,000 a week more. But I had just come off three-and-a-half years at Feyenoord where it had been up and down. I had just found my feet [at Celtic] and I wanted to go on with that. We’d played in the UEFA Cup, I played for Sweden, I didn’t feel I needed to go somewhere else... I didn’t become a superstar at Barcelona, I became a superstar at Celtic."

Larsson was off to a tremendous start in the 1999-2000 season, scoring 12 goals in 13 matches in the early stages of John Barnes’ Ill-fated spell as manager. It’s a miracle, though, that the story doesn’t end here.

Celtic's UEFA Cup second-round clash against Lyon almost finished him. In a tussle with Serge Blanc in the first 10 minutes, the striker's leg snapped in two places. It was a horrifying sight. Celtic midfielder Lambert said after the match: “It’s an absolute shocker for Henrik. I saw his leg and it was not a very nice sight. It’s such a tragedy for him. He has been a wonderful player all the time I’ve been here. We just want to see him back as soon as possible."

"You could tell right away that it was serious because of the reaction of the players close to him," Barnes said. "We didn’t tell the players until after the game how bad it was."

Years later, Larsson explained that he attempted to block Blanc's tackle with his left leg while winning the ball with the other. "I had the wrong shoes. Someone had forgotten to pack my shoes for the match. Plus, I had a stress fracture in my left leg [before the game]," he said. "Suddenly I was just lying on the ground. The tackle wasn't that hard; it was more about the angle I was tackled from."

He was considered lucky to be out for just eight months, making his return in the last league game of the season. Amazingly, he somehow came back even better than ever. Fifty-three goals in 50 games in his first year back: it was superhuman!

It’s not just that Larsson could find the net, it was how he did it. A deft touch, a beautiful lob, a shot from a tight angle, or a complete humiliation of defences – he defied belief on the ball and showed great intelligence off it. Larsson was as elegant as he was deadly.

This time Celtic won the treble. The man in the No.7 jersey was everyone's Player of the Year. SPL top scorer with 35, earning him the European Golden Shoe – each goal weighing less than those of Hernan Crespo for Lazio, Andriy Shevchenko for AC Milan, Raul for Real Madrid and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink for Chelsea. He also scored twice in the Scottish Cup final as Celtic beat Hibs 3-0, and his hat-trick made the League Cup final against Kilmarnock a one-man show.

Celtic walked away with the SPL title the following season with 103 points as Larsson scored 35 in 47 games in all competitions as part of a phenomenal duo with John Hartson. Still, they lost the two cup finals to Rangers.

"Larsson is one of the best strikers in Europe, maybe the world," Rangers boss Advocaat said. “If you watch [Gabriel] Batistuta, he is sometimes not seen for 90 minutes, but he scores two goals. Larsson has even more, because besides being a good player and goal-scorer, he has a tremendous work rate."

The 2002-03 campaign was quite ridiculous. Again, there were few games in which Larsson wasn’t either scoring or assisting goals. He even netted twice in a 3-3 draw against Rangers. The SPL title race boiled down to the last day of the season, Celtic won 4-0 with Larsson assisting one to ensure they ended with 97 points and +72 goal difference, while Rangers beat Dunfermline 6-1 to end on 97 and +73.

That wasn’t it for Celtic that year, though. They were on a rampage in Europe, Larsson especially. Blackburn, Celta Vigo, Liverpool and Boavista were all his victims as he scored nine goals in as many UEFA Cup games to fire Martin O'Neill's side to the final.

Against Jose Mourinho’s Porto, Larsson was Celtic’s main creator and goal threat, heading in an equaliser shortly after half-time. He repeated the feat 10 minutes later after O’Neill’s team had fallen behind again, but Porto went on to win in extra-time.

"I wasn't happy [about the final] at all," he said. "I'd rather not have scored the two goals and we won the game. It's not a happy memory, but I've learned to live with it now. It took me a long time to get over it. We're talking years, because you shouldn't lose that game. Scoring two goals against Porto. We shouldn't lose. They won the Champions League the year after, so they were a very good side, but I still think we had them. We had them."

The following season, the Glasgow side dominated domestically again with Larsson scoring 30 goals in 37 league games and a double in the cup final win over Dunfermline. They finished 17 points clear of Rangers in the SPL with Larsson scoring twice in a 2-1 win against Dundee United in the last game of the season. Still, it was a sad day: it was his last-ever at Celtic Park. Tears were flowing inside and out the stadium that day as the King of Kings departed.

Larsson was 34 years old and had turned down many offers from the Premier League by then. “I was never interested in going down south and maybe earning a little bit more money because I had a good contract at Celtic,” he said. “No regrets about that at all. How can I regret that? The career I had at Celtic, the amount of goals and assists and the relationship with the fans and the club, I can't regret that. That's something I'm going to cherish as long as I live."

Barcelona, meanwhile, hadn't won a single trophy since 1999, and with Frank Rijkaard’s second season about to get underway, they needed a reliable, experienced striker to join up with fellow new signings Ludovic Giuly and Samuel Eto’o. A free agent who had just won Euro 2004 Goal of the Tournament with Sweden, Larsson was snapped up on a one-year deal with an option for a second. After scoring against Celtic in his first Champions League game, he suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury and missed much of the title-winning first campaign, but he remains adored at Barca for what he managed in his second season.

Larsson was a healthy supplier of goals in 2005-06 as Barca won La Liga, but his greatest contribution came as a substitute in the Champions League final against Arsenal. As soon as he replaced Mark van Bommel in the 60th minute with Barca 1-0 down, he was chasing down any ball that came near him. A quarter of an hour afterwards, he was on the left flank to divert to Eto'o for the equaliser. Then, his sharp pass from the right wing found Juliano Belletti in a dangerous area and suddenly it was 2-1.

"People always talk about Ronaldinho, and everything, but I didn’t see him today, I saw Henrik Larsson. He came on; he changed the game, that is what killed the game," Thierry Henry said afterwards. "All the time you talk about Ronaldinho and Eto’o and people like that. Let’s talk about the proper people who make the difference; that was Henrik Larsson, who made two assists. I didn’t see Ronaldinho and I didn’t see Eto’o."

Brazil phenomenon and two-time Ballon d’Or winner Ronaldinho later said of the man who left Barca that summer having played 62 games and scored 22 goals: "When he came to Barcelona, Henrik said nice things about me, but by the time he left, he was my idol. In fact, he was my idol even before that. I remember him playing for Sweden in the 1994 World Cup. Henrik taught me a lot about football, and I learned even more from him as a person. I was disappointed that he left for Sweden because I would have loved to have played with him for longer."

Helsingborg were able to lure Larsson home in 2006 and, unsurprisingly, he was quite fantastic for them, scoring frequently in the league. What was surprising was his December loan move to Manchester United.

Sir Alex Ferguson needed someone to fill in up front with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer out injured, leaving Wayne Rooney and Louis Saha as the only consistently fit forwards, so a three-month loan deal during the Swedish close-season was arranged. Larsson's influence may have been limited, but at nearly 36 years old, he left Old Trafford with a Premier League title to his name.

"I have always admired Larsson. I made a move for him when he was at Celtic but then they managed to persuade him to stay," Ferguson said. "He is a great player. It is a terrific bit of business for us. We are bringing someone in who can change a game."

It doesn’t take a Scotsman to see Henrik Larsson’s divine talent, though. The whole world will remember the King of Kings.