He hadn't said it at home, but at San Siro after his team's final matchday, Milan, he took a microphone and explained to the world: "The time has come to say goodbye to football." He said later that he had decided in the last two weeks, but it didn't seem hard to imagine it either. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Malmöe, Sweden, 1981) hangs up his boots about to turn 42 and after a season in which he barely lined up four times with his team and a quarter of an hour with his selection of which he came and went depending on his concerns. "My winning mentality has a disadvantage: I go crazy," he explained in his celebrated biography, a resume in which he defined his football and existential script: "I'm always planning revenge. I carry it inside. It's what motivates me."
Ibrahimovic always played against. A professional soccer player for three different decades, his start in 1999 with Malmöe rescued him from a complicated environment even though he always felt in Rosengard, the crowded neighborhood of immigrants in which he grew up. "You can take a child out of the ghetto, but you will never take the ghetto out of it." Indomitable he always felt more prepared for fighting than for consensus and his football was a portrait, exuberant, applied martial arts techniques to his shots. Taekwondo gave him extraordinary coordination for his size. "There is only one player in the world who measures 1.96 cm, who has the technique of Messi, the character of Muhammad Ali and the strength of Mike Tyson," said his representative, the late Mino Raiola. Together they formed an empire.
"Now we are free," Gladiator's chords sounded while all Milan, Paolo Maldini included, made him corridor in the farewell. Ibrahimovic later explained that, at last now, he needs to find a balance to get his life on track after wearing shorts: "If I don't have serenity and stability I'm a bomb. And the bombs explode." However, he confessed himself prepared to face a new life. He does not rule out recycling himself into a technician or dedicating himself to sports management, but he assumes that he should change to be one. "A coach can't get to work on a Ferrari... Well, maybe Ibra could do it," he says.
San Siro's final tribute to Zlatan Ibrahimović 🌟 #SempreMilan pic.twitter.com/9XTYZ0QtNt
— AC Milan (@acmilan) June 5, 2023
From Rosengard and his beloved Malmöe to the best catwalks in Milan. He played in the two big clubs of the city, also in Ajax, Juventus, Barcelona, PSG, Manchester United and even an experience in the North American MLS. "I came, I saw, I conquered. Thank you to the Los Angeles Galaxy for making me feel alive again. To the Galaxy fans: you wanted Zlatan, and I gave you Zlatan. You are welcome. The story continues... Now go back to watching baseball, "he wrote in his farewell before returning to the Italian Serie A, where this season he caressed, without success, his last wish: to lift the European Cup once and for all.
He leaves football without achieving it, also without transcending in the great competitions of national teams, but with 34 titles, only three international (the European Super Cup and the Club World Cup in his stormy year at Barcelona, and a Europa League with United), with 558 goals in 949 games between clubs and selection.
With an ego as huge as its deployment. Ibrahimovic glossed in his goodbye as when he appreciated that it was beginning to rain he immediately thought that God was also sad for his farewell. He wasn't the only one. "Godbye", was read over a huge tifo formed in a grandstand of the Milan stadium. Charisma, leadership... shouted the speaker as Tina Turner and The Best sounded and Ibrahimovic took an Olympic lap of the stadium. In black, the footballer who claimed that he needed to be angry to do his job well, wiped his tears, opened his arms as if he were an albatross and hugged San Siro: "I have shown that Superman has a big heart. Whoever knows me knows."
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