Zlatan Ibrahimović

Who is Zlatan Ibrahimović?

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is an ace Swedish footballer who plays for the English club Manchester United. He served the Swedish football team as a captain from 2010 until he retired from international football in 2016. Known as one of the most prolific strikers, Ibrahimovic is well*known for his strength, precision and stamina. Having won 33 trophies in his football career, he has become the second most decorated active footballer of present times. Beginning his career in late 90’s, through his sheer ability and skills, he became a crucial member of the Swedish national football team. He is one of the ten players to have made more than 100 appearances for the national football team of Sweden.Hhe is the all time leading international goal scorer for Sweden. He represented his home country in the 2002 and 2006 world cups along with several UEFA European championships. He has been awarded Sweden’s highest honour for a football player, the Golden Ball award, for a record 11 times. In December 2013, The Guardian named him as one of the top three footballers of this era, behind legends, such as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. In December 2014, he was namedas the second greatest Swedish sportsperson of all time by a leading Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter; the first being legendary tennis player, Bjorn Borg.

Club Career

In July 2001, Ibrahimovic joined Ajax and with this began his major league career. In his first Champions League for Ajax in 2002, he scored five goals in total and later in 2004 he got the ‘Goal of the Tournament’ honour. The 2004 Champions League turned out to be his final season for Ajax due to a controversy. Thereafter, he joined Juventus.

Ibrahimovic was unable to continue his form and his performance declined while playing for Juventus which eventually forced him to move to Internazionale. The deal turned out to be fruitful for Ibrahimovic and in 2008-2009 serie A season, he emerged as the leading goal-scorer with 25 individual goals.

He was eventually signed by Barcelona and in the 2009 Championship League, he finished with 11 goals and 8 assists in the first 15 league matches for Barcelona. He then moved over to play for Milan and made his debut against Cesena in September 2010 in the Championship League, which he eventually finished with 13 goals and 8 assists.

He continued switching through clubs and finally ended up with Manchester United in July 2016. In his Premier League debut match he scored a total of 20 goals in the tournament. Ibrahimovic won his very first major title in form of Europa League 2016 and was named in the ‘Squad of the Season.’