The rise of Dejan Kulusevski: How ‘Sweden’s top talent’ became a hit at Tottenham with an Abba-themed song
Those who have witnessed the 21-year-old’s rise tell i about his career so far and why he has quickly become one of Antonio Conte’s key players
By Oliver Young-Myles
March 11, 2022 4:57 pm(Updated 5:31 pm)
Scroll through Dejan Kulusevski’s Instagram page for long enough and a couple of things soon become apparent. One: he loves hip-hop, each carefully curated highlight-reel is accompanied by backing vocals from the likes of J. Cole to Dave. Two: throughout his formative years in Italy and since his move to Tottenham, he has had the same inner circle by his side.
“I’ve been friends with him since the age of nine,” Joel Asoro, former Sunderland and Swansea striker and one of Kulusevski’s closest friends, tells i. “We went to the same school for a long time and we played at IF Brommapojkarna [BP] together for six years from nine until 15. He’s a funny guy and a really kind person to be honest. We’re in contact every day, we text every day.”
Kulusevski and Asoro were earmarked as two of Sweden’s brightest talents as they were rising through the youth ranks at BP in Stockholm. “It was incredible, you couldn’t count how many goals we scored together!” Asoro, now back in Sweden with Djurgardens, says. “He was assisting me all the time, one game he gave me five assists. It was crazy. He would put the ball in behind and I would just run.”
“We started [working together] back in 2012,” says Andreas Engelmark, BP’s first-team assistant and former academy director. “He had really good skills with the ball, on the dribble and his awareness of the game was really good. Year by year he kept developing, his combination play, his finishing and his ability to run in behind, which I think he can still do better, but he started doing that during those years.”
The problem for clubs of BP’s size is that when a teenager begins to realise their potential, the secret is soon out. “At that point [in 2015-16] we sold about five players to foreign clubs – it’s fairly common for us to do that,” Engelmark reveals.
Kulusevski was one of them, moving to Italy to join Atalanta, a club that enjoys a burgeoning reputation as one of European football’s elite talent-spotters.
“It was at that age around 15 when I thought he could become a special player,” Engelmark recalls. “He was working harder, he was a more complete player and creating chances in different ways and his shooting from distance was becoming better.
“Atalanta actually called me asking if I thought he would be a player that could become a professional and I said yes because he had the right mentality for it. With Dejan, he wanted to move and I think that pathway suited him well.”
Amid the upheaval of moving from one country to another, Kulusevski also found himself being courted by two different national teams: Sweden, the country of his birth and North Macedonia, where his parents are from. He represented both at youth level before ultimately committing to Sweden.
“His parents are from Ohrid which is a town close to a lake here, it’s one of the most beautiful places in the country,” says Filip Mishov, a freelance sports journalist in North Macedonia. “You can easily see from his Instagram that he is regularly coming to Ohrid to visit Macedonia and he speaks very good Macedonian.
“Back in 2015, he was called up to the U16s and he did pretty well. There was a match against Montenegro in which he scored four goals in a 6-0 win so he instantly made a big impression on the football federation.
“I interviewed Igor Angelovski, the national team coach who led Macedonia to the Euros last summer, and he met three times with Kulusevski. He had an offer at 16 to join the senior national team but he opted to play for Sweden’s U17 team. In that time Macedonia was out of the European map in terms of football [Sweden were ranked 35th in the world at the end of 2015, while North Macedonia were 139th].”
How was Kulusevski’s decision received in Macedonia? “I wouldn’t say that everyone is holding a grudge against him,” Mishov says. “But of course, it would have been nice for him to play for Macedonia and pair him with this next generation of talented players, like Eljif Elmas [of Napoli]. Every time Kulusevski scores or assists, the Macedonian media is writing about him.”
Kulusevski has so far made 20 appearances for Sweden scoring once. “He’s obviously one of the top talents that we have, with Alexander Isak [Real Sociedad] and Anthony Elanga,” remarks Engelmark. He also has a fan in Zlatan Ibrahimovic. “What a f**king joke!” tweeted Ibrahimovic in typically understated fashion after Kulusevski was named on the bench for a game against France in September 2020.
At club level, the 2019-20 season proved transformative for Kulusevski’s career. After only three appearances for Atalanta’s first-team, he joined Parma on loan, where he scored 10 goals and provided eight assists in 35 Serie A matches. Juventus – then on course to win their ninth successive Scudetto – had seen enough, paying Atalanta £29m rising to a possible £36m for him.
Although the Old Lady’s Serie A dominance was ended by Antonio Conte’s Inter, Kulusevski enjoyed a successful debut campaign in Turin, which culminated in a goal and assist in a 2-1 Coppa Italia final win over Atalanta. A managerial change saw his minutes cut, however, with Massimiliano Allegri tending to use him as an impact player.
“I don’t know what Juventus were thinking, to be honest,” Asoro says of the club’s decision to offload the 21-year-old to Spurs. “Maybe he just didn’t suit their system… obviously when you find the right coach and the right players that’s where you’re going to see the best out of him. But he’s around world-class players with Son and Harry Kane so I’m not surprised [he’s doing well].”
Engelmark agrees that Spurs’ current setup under Conte suits Kulusevski far better. “Juventus in the last half-year was not good,” he admits. “It was difficult for him. He was in and out of the team and didn’t play in a clear position or role and they were pretty defensive. At Tottenham, I think he has a clear role that suits him really well and he has players around him in Harry Kane and Son who are really good combination players. That’s when he’s at his best.”
Tottenham have made plenty of costly mistakes in the transfer market in recent years, as Conte has no problem pointing out. In January, Spurs loaned out £115m worth of talent – Tanguy Ndombele, Giovani Lo Celso and Bryan Gil – and moved on Dele Alli, once touted as a £100m+ player, to Everton.
But the early signs are that they have struck gold with Kulusevski, who has scored twice and provided three assists in his opening six Premier League games for the club. It is no coincidence, perhaps, that Kane has hit top form and Matt Doherty has seemingly salvaged his Spurs career since Kulusevski’s introduction on the right.
Spurs fans have also quickly taken to him. In fewer than 10 appearances, Kulusevski already has a catchy chant made for him to the tune of ABBA’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! As long as he maintains his current form, the song will only become more audible in the concourse and stands of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Just don’t expect to hear Sweden’s most famous quartet feature on his Instagram.
