When English football’s original super Swede reflects on his arrival as one of a tiny band of foreign players imported in the pre-Premier League days, Anders Limpar laughs at the memory. This was a different world from the one that saw Zlatan Ibrahimovic appear in a blaze of awestruck glory as soon as he touched down at Manchester United.

Limpar, a winger blessed with delicate footwork and an eye for the unpredictable, joined Arsenal in 1990. Before that he had been playing in Serie A – then the undisputed summit of world football – and had featured for Sweden at the World Cup. So it was not as if he had been plucked from the back of beyond.

But in the days before YouTube compilations, Limpar walked into an almost exclusively English dressing room as a total unknown. “They didn’t have a clue. Who was this little Swedish guy? They didn’t even know my name. They didn’t know anything about me,” he recalls. “I got a prize for coming third in the vote for the best foreigner in Italy. Maradona came first, Lothar Matthäus came second. Suddenly I came to England and nobody knew me. It was amazing how closed, how small, it was.”

Arsenal found out quickly how good he was, as Limpar was an instrumental presence as his new team won the title in his first season in England. He is back in London this weekend, eager to once again pull on a red and white jersey to take part in the Arsenal Legends v Milan Glorie match on Saturday, an occasion central to the Arsenal Foundation’s mission to donate £1m to build football pitches for children in Jordan and Somalia as well as facilities closer to home in north London.

The Arsenal Foundation has provided help for 12-year-old Iraqi Esra, who has been living in a camp for internally displaced people for almost two years with her family. Esra takes part in a football programme aimed at building confidence among girls, and plays on one of two football pitches funded by the Foundation near the camp. Photograph: Tom Pilston/Save the Children

Limpar’s heart may be with Arsenal, the team he follows from home in Solna every week, but a large chunk of his interest this season will focus on Manchester United as he observes the feats of his compatriot. “Zlatan is definitely the super Swede nowadays,” he says. “I just pray to God that he will win the Premier League. There are not many who have won in Spain, in Italy, in England and the rest. I met him twice and he is the sweetest guy you could ever meet. He is awesome in that sense. His image is his image but all I can say is that behind that image he has a good heart. For Sweden he has been the bees knees. He has been everything for us this last 10 years. He has been the greatest ambassador we could have.

“In every era you have players who are lifting their club up, which Zlatan is doing now. You need that. United have the greatest character you could ever have. He thinks he is the world. But the thing is, if you think you are the world and you don’t deliver you are in the shit. But he thinks he is the world and he delivers. You can’t ask for more.” Some charismatic characters, he feels, are a vital part of any successful team.

Limpar as a player was a maverick but did not display that kind of super-confidence. Dazzling though he was, there were doubts about his capacity to bring a delicate touch into the typically ferocious style of the times. He was shy and anxious about even meeting his new team-mates, and in his first week three of them – Lee Dixon, Paul Davis and Mickey Thomas – invited him to their houses for dinner so he wasn’t left to fend for himself. “All respect to them for taking a foreigner under their wings so that I felt welcome,” he says.

As for adapting to the football, nine games into his new experience he was involved in a mass brawl at Old Trafford. “I’d heard about English football, that it’s brutal and tough and you need to tackle. I saw in that moment it was true,” he recalls.

“This is really the jungle here and you had to kill otherwise you get killed. I remember Brian McClair hammered Nigel Winterburn, kicking him while he was on the floor. I tried to push him away and I actually hit him with my fist. That’s the thing I regret even to this day. Then the big boys joined in and Paul Ince grabbed me and he threw me into the stands and the fans started hammering me!”

Limpar recalls that the television cameras came to the training ground a few days later to film the manager, George Graham, talking to the team and giving them the ticking off required to send out the right public message. “But once the cameras went off he said, ‘Yes! I loved that! We are the Arsenal!’ I liked that spirit. He was the man who loved players to play really hard and get into the fire.” Arsenal were given a two point penalty as a result of that fracas, but still went on to win the league.

Anders Limpar at Arsenal in 1990, with Nigel Winterburn in attendance. Photograph: Bob Thomas/Getty Images

It was a fascinating period in the English game as it began to dabble with overseas influences. Stylistically, Limpar finessed Graham’s team with flair and subtlety. A hat-trick as they celebrated the 1990-91 title and a lob struck from the centre circle against Liverpool epitomised how importing a different style could make a critical impact. “You had players like Gazza or John Barnes, but maybe people were surprised to see a foreigner can come to England and do it,” says Limpar.

Graham’s trust in Limpar waned after a couple of years. “When you look back he wanted the toughness. If we were 3-0 up at half-time he didn’t want us to relax. Maybe he didn’t know how to handle foreigners, wondering if I might get big-headed or stroll around. But you can’t question the trophies.” Limpar wanted to stay on and fight for his place but his manager wasn’t receptive. He moved on to Everton, where he won the FA Cup in 1995.

Limpar, 50, feels “blessed” to have the chance to play again in the Legends match, even if he is worried at how easy it is to tear a muscle when you no longer play regularly. He will get to play under a different style of manager as Arsène Wenger is taking the home team (Fabio Capello is managing Milan), but will not be drawn into commenting on Wenger’s current position. As a regular watcher of the current Arsenal team, he has his opinions but as a former manager himself, knowing the problems that come with the job even at the level he was working in Sweden’s second division, he is conscious of the challenges Wenger faces. “I love to see Arsenal as a fan and I know some of the fans demand to win the league but I wouldn’t dare criticise Wenger,” he says.

A gentler soul than the Premier League’s Swede of the moment, Limpar might still have a trick or two to put on display on Saturday.