Dejan Kulusevski Spurred on by his switch to Tottenham

With his boyhood idol driving him forwards, Dejan Kulusevski is feeling at home with Spurs, and loving living in London

Tottenham’s Dejan Kulusevski challenges Declan Rice of West Ham

The show is called Playmakers and turns the WAGs of Swedish sports stars into vloggers, who post video diaries of their lives with their partners. It is shown online by Sweden’s TV4 and season five began last week — featuring Eldina Ahmic and her boyfriend, Tottenham midfield star Dejan Kulusevski.

The first clips are fun, and include Eldina and Dejan going to a cafe and goofing about, and singing at the top of their voices in the car.

Eldina “was nervous,” Dejan says, “me less because I know that for some years everything I do comes out in a way or another.”

Eldina is doing all the filming on her phone and agreed to the show because she wanted to try something new, and Dejan is supportive. “Everything she wants to do, I’m in it and happy for it,” he says. He looks an absolute natural on camera and, chatting via Zoom from Tottenham Hotspur’s training ground, grins when he talks about it.

“You have to be careful what you show to people because people cannot wait to bring you down but I think that I am maturing a lot and the more the time goes, the more comfortable I feel in who I am,” he says.

“So here I am. I don’t care what will happen and what I say. I just love being myself and keep doing me.”

Perhaps this mindset helps to explain how Kulusevski, only 10 games into his Spurs career, already looks an established force in the Premier League, and as though he has been playing with Harry Kane and Son Heung-min for years.

The Swede, 21, arrived on loan in January, having completed 90 minutes only three times for his parent club Juventus since the 2021-22 season began, but is making the Juventus head coach Max Allegri’s distrust of him look ridiculous, with six goal involvements in his past seven games.

It seems Kulusevski has just rolled into the Premier League, being himself and “doing Dejan”, which means expressing a talent that first brought wider attention in Sweden at the age of seven, and a controversial move from the Stockholm club IF Brommapojkarna to Atalanta at 15. He is tailor-made for English football with his speed, strength, technique, creative eye and ability to make quick and right decisions, and relief fuels him too.

Having played regularly for Juventus under Andrea Pirlo, his demotion to impact substitute under Allegri was “hard”.

“Life is a lot of ups and downs,” he says. “You really have to be strong when things are not going the way you think they should be going, you have to keep always being humble, always being nice, but it’s very frustrating when you love something but you cannot show it.

“I knew I needed a change and I’m very, very happy that Tottenham believed in me, and the coach (Antonio Conte) wanted me. I have a lot of motivation to do good because I know I have the qualities and I love to work.”

Ever since departing Sweden young, “every year I’ve been thinking about Premier League, Premier League,” and now that he is here, “it could not be better … I’m just trying to believe that I’m living in London and playing for a club like Tottenham”.

Often a No 10 or second striker for Sweden, and used in numerous roles by Juventus, he thanks Conte for giving him a fixed position, to the right of Kane in Tottenham’s 3-4-2-1. “I think football is evolving and I am a guy who cannot stand still and I want to move in big, big spaces. I really find my space where I’m playing and every game have had chances to score.

“I don’t have to speak about the quality of Son and Kane, because it is ridiculous what they are doing. They are fantastic footballers and really good humans, it is easy to play with them. We are having fun when we play and I think that’s really important, and that we keep helping each other, because the more we help each other the more we’re going to win.”

Eldina, 27, has put her playing career on hold, but was a footballer too, a midfielder for Bosnia and BP’s women’s team. Like her, Kulusevski was born in Stockholm with Balkan heritage. Katica, his mother, was born in North Macedonia, while Stefan, his father, was born in Sweden to North Macedonian parents. Dejan played for Macedonia Under-17 before switching to Sweden and wishes he hadn’t had to choose. “If I could play with both national teams I would do it,” he says.

His parents’ roots are in the small city of Ohrid, a World Heritage site nestling by one of Europe’s most gorgeous lakes. “It’s an amazing place. My father has gone there every summer for 40 years. Me and my sister go every summer and really love being there and being with our cousins,” he says.

“It is a different air and I love taking my friends. Not a lot of people know about North Macedonia and they always get surprised when I show them how beautiful it is.”

He grew up idolising Zlatan Ibrahimovic — born in Sweden to parents from Bosnia and Croatia — and Ibrahimovic has been one of Kulusevski’s biggest champions. When Sweden coach Janne Andersson dropped Kulusevksi to the bench against France in 2020, Ibrahimovic tweeted: “What a f … ing joke.”

Kulusevski attempts to explain what Ibrahimovic means to him. “For children like me, who come from a different country, and have blood from Macedonia … it’s amazing. I think Zlatan opened doors to us people in Sweden that nobody can imagine. He really helped every young kid … kids (who were) outsiders. When I got older and started playing and he started mentioning my name, I was like a kid at Christmas. It’s a big thing for me just knowing that Zlatan likes me.”

With Zlatan, 40, now out of international retirement, he and Kulusevski are in Andersson’s squad and it will be another chance to learn from the great man. “I listen to him a lot, taking his advice, because he knows what he’s talking about and he’s a very humble person and a very funny guy.”

Humble? “He’s actually a very humble guy. I don’t think at that age to keep doing what he’s doing, to keep working … you have achieved so much and you want more. He’s

a role model in many ways,” Kulusevski says.

Kulusevski is “very grateful for not being just from one country and staying there”. He believes his heritage has opened him to different people and cultures, as did joining Atalanta so young.

“I moved to Italy when I was 15, without parents, going to school in a language that I didn’t understand. I did a lot of hard things but it helped me a lot. I would do the same again.”

He speaks Swedish, Macedonian, English, Italian, German “and I’m starting to understand Spanish” so multinational London suits him.

“The thing I like is I know a lot of people. In Italy it was harder to meet people, but here there are a lot of Swedish people and I have a lot of friends, and after the football it’s nice to know you’ve got a life; that you don’t have to go home and only think about training and games,” he says. “I think it has helped me a lot, just being able to be a normal 21-year-old and a happy guy.”

Juventus, who bought him for euros 35 million ($51m) from Atalanta in January 2020, offloaded Kulusevski for euros 10 million on an 18-month loan, with Spurs obliged to make it permanent for a further euros 35 million if certain conditions are met. He wants it to happen. “I love the club, my teammates, the coach, but I take nothing for granted,” he says.

What about the song, based on an Abba hit, that Spurs fans have for him: “Gimme gimme gimme a ginger from Sweden"?

“I love it, of course,” he grins. “All my friends send it to me all the time and it’s really funny.”

The Sunday Times