With an ego in the sky ("God's return") and just before age, 40 Zlatan Ibrahimovic returns to the Swedish team tonight after five years
Ibrahimovic.
Mentor for the younger generation
Photo:
AFP
In the last five years, since Zlatan Ibrahimovic decided to retire from the Swedish national team, the yellow and blues have done well without him.
They recorded their biggest achievement since appearing in the 1994 World Cup semi-finals when they qualified for the quarter-finals of the World Cup in Russia in 2018. Who feared.
However, something was still missing for coach Jana Anderson, a certain roughness that would make his team a little more colorful and mostly a little worse.
So ahead of the opening of the World Cup qualifying campaign in Qatar he decided to bring back to the squad the greatest state players of all time.
It is very possible that any summons from another player approaching the age of 40 would have seemed like a gimmick or respectful, but not in this case.
Ibra, despite injuries that have sidelined him with quite a few games this season, is considered one of the reasons Milan are going through their best season since the last championship in 2011. He scored 15 goals in 15 appearances (the team's top scorer) and he Serves as the most important teacher the young people of the Rossoneri have.
When the team finds young players such as Jean Kolosevsky and Alexander Isaac on whom they are building for the future, they realize that Zlatan also has a significant role to play in everything that happens on the field.
For his presence and the advice he can give, there is no substitute.
"I maintain a very high level, I am not in the squad because my name is Zlatan and Ibrahimovic, but because of what I add to the squad and what I have achieved. I think I deserve it," he said.
“First and foremost he is a very good football player, the best we have had in Sweden, so of course it is fun that he wants to come back,” Anderson said.
"He has amazing experience and he can root it out to others."
The big shoes
Anderson should be commended for his decision.
Along with the good things that Zlatan will bring it is known that this is a man with an ego in heaven, who does not spare what is on his heart.
Only recently did he attack the coach who did not start with Kolosevsky against France.
When he received the summons, he posted a picture on the networks and wrote: "The return of God."
The post drew a discourse in Sweden, and there were those who feared it would hurt the group fabric.
James Calbert of the Times raised a column called "The Return of the Ego", in which he also objected, claiming that even if Zlatan did not have the ability to do what he did years ago and even if he released the "Zlatan" in it, who knows how to be unbearable , Is still the man who can make the difference.
Coupled with the uncharacteristic crying at this week's press conference, in which he said he was "just a piece of the puzzle," there is hope among the catalogers that the beast in which he calmed down.
With a record of 62 goals in 112 games, a statistic that no one comes close to, and after the last year in which he turned Milan from a dismantled team to one that is starting to get used to the top again, he proved to those who did not have to prove, that he is a living legend.
Despite the success without him, no one can get into his shoes.
It's still unclear if Zlatan will open today against Georgia (, (21:45) but in any case a performance in the game will make him the oldest player to wear the yellow shirt. Rest assured that the striker who does not like the discourse around his age, will focus on paving his way to Euro summer and - that God really returned.