Rafael reveals Zlatan split

Rafael van der Vaart has revealed he never saw eye-to-eye with former star Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Van der Vaart admitted that he and Swedish international Ibrahimovic clashed during their time together at the Amsterdam ArenA.

Ibrahimovic has now moved onto Juventus and van der Vaart admitted he was only the player to stand up to the Swede at Ajax.

"Our characters collided. If he said something, then I said something back," van der Vaart told Dutch daily De Gelderlander

"Most of the others kept their mouths shut. That I cannot do.

"Ajax have a young group, I couldn't expect that also the others stood up and said 'Zlatan, what are you doing?'

"Some agreed with him, others agreed with me. Some don't interfere at all. But I'm captain and I have an opinion. I won't keep that to myself. I'm no hypocrite."

Tensions between the pair almost came to boiling point last month when they clashed on international duty.

Van der Vaart was forced off after five minutes of the game following a heavy challenge from Ibrahimovic and the Dutchman believes his former team-mate did it on purpose to try and injure him.

"This week I saw the pictures for the first time. The foul looked pretty dirty, I thought," added van der Vaart.

"I saw how he was busy and thought that kick for me couldn't have been anything else than on purpose."