The Italian league will start today, and the champion Milan will open the season with a home game against Udinese.
The one who will be watching the game from the sidelines is Zlatan Ibrahimovic who is recovering from a complicated surgery that many were sure would end his career.
The point is that it is Zlatan.
And with him, almost nothing is similar to what happens with other footballers.
Although in less than two months the Swede will celebrate his 41st birthday, he is in excellent physical shape.
The photo published last week, with him shirtless and with impressive squares in his stomach, left no one indifferent.
So even though his contract in Milan expired at the end of last season, and even though he will miss almost half of the upcoming season, Milan was not ready to give up on him and signed him to a new contract.
A ready for action 41-year-old football player!
Zlatan is BACK!
#zlatan #Ibrahimovic #ACM #ACMilan #SerieATIM pic.twitter.com/LIIb8UlqOt
— helpbet.com (@HelpbetC) August 11, 2022
Coach Stefano Pioli was the one who made sure that Zlatan remained part of the team, also because he will receive him ever hungrier when the season resumes in January, after the World Cup ends, and not least, due to his importance in the dressing room.
Pioli said: "Zeltan helped me grow as a coach, he was the one who gave the whole team the Wiener mentality and the belief that we are capable. He is the most intelligent and kindest person I know in football."
You have to remember, for the 56-year-old Pioli it was a first degree in a 20-year career and he knows that without Zaltan's contribution, it wouldn't have happened.
🗣️ Stefano #Pioli to #Gazzetta: "#Zlatan is not here but he is here, because he is always in contact with everyone. He is a champion who can still make a difference. At the end of last season, he made sacrifices. "
pic.twitter.com/MsDTcbawdG
— Milan Posts 🏆🇮🇹 (@MilanPosts) August 5, 2022
Zlatan returned to Milan in January 2020, when it seemed his career was nearing an end.
This was after two years at LA Galaxy.
And as we know, superstars move to MLS to end careers.
But not Zlatan.
He scored 11 goals in half a season, adding another 17 the following season as Pioli began to build the new Milan around him, with young players who only wanted to learn from him.
The French striker Olivier Giroud said: "From the outside it seems that he is focused on himself, but those who work with him every day know that this is really not the case."
Indeed, it is much more than that.
When last season ended with the first championship win after 11 years (from Zlatan to Zlatan), the Swede was amazed when he said that for the last six months he played without an anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.
"I only managed to train 10 times in 6 months," he said.
"Every week I would drain the knee of fluids using a syringe. And every day I took painkillers. For half a year I hardly slept because of the pain."
The suffering was worth it.
Because Zlatan finished the season with 8 goals, 14 championships in his career and title number 32.
Ibrahimovic and the championship medal.
Far beyond the actor, photo: AP
It is too short to detail all the achievements and records that Zlatan recorded in a career that stretches over four different decades.
It's not a mistake: he started playing and scoring in 1999, in the Swedish Malmo uniform.
He won with his various teams every possible title, with the exception of one: the Champions League.
So Milan may not win the Champions League this season, but Zlatan is determined to record another historic record.
Ibrahimovic's last goal in the Champions League was 6 and a half years ago, when he was still playing for PSG.
So he was stopped at 48 goals, which puts him in 10th place all-time.
If and when he scores later in the season, he will break by more than 3 years the record of Francesco Totti, the oldest scorer in the history of the Champions (38 and 2 months).
Does anyone doubt that this will happen?
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