The Sports Buff ⚽️ ⚾️ 🏈

He had a career, that spanned over essentially four decades. Along the way, he earned accolades and admiration along the way and attention, a lot of attention.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has announced that he will retire from football aged 41. AC Milan, who were the club where he played his last game in the professional game, gave the man a fitting send-off, which even made the self-assured, very confident and even bordering on arrogant Zlatan break down and cry.

Cue the Chuck Norris-like quotes. Zlatan doesn’t cry, his eyes sweat or whatever sort of nonsense the internet comes up with. “Zlatan doesn’t do auditions”, this for me is the Swede’s most famous quote as reportedly Arsenal manager at the time, Arsene Wenger wanted Ibrahimovic to do a trial.

The 41-year-old went to Malmo in his native Sweden and the rest as they say was history. Sure he had some setbacks. Zlatan had some knee injuries, the one suffered at Manchester United, I thought at the time was going to end his career, but to his credit, he came back from it.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic went to LA Galaxy and wowed America with his vanity statements such as retuning Kobe Bryant’s basketball jersey. As much as he was a hard man, someone who on the outside appeared to have a carefree attitude almost, the 41-year-old was fiercely competitive.

Ibrahimovic won a Europa League and League Cup double at Man United in what was a poor Red Devils side. He inspired The Reds to do better. In his only full season at the club, he was their top scorer.

In his second spell in Italy, it became clear that players like Rafael Leao were benefiting from having people like him around. The Rosaneri won the title two seasons ago, which in part was down to Zlatan’s leadership, and his calmness in the changing room.

The former PSG striker did produce some catchy sound bites, which has been great for social media and some foolish too. Zlatan you’re not a God, you’re a good football player that’s it!

There’s nothing wrong with being self-assured, you have scored 570 goals in your career, after all, I haven’t even scored that many in FIFA. Let’s not forget the 34 trophies that have been won in a career that’s lasted for 20 years, over four decades.

This kind of speech you did (comparing yourself to a God), just came across as embarrassing at times. Clearly, you were an athlete who had been in pristine condition your whole career, but you were declining as time went on and spending less time on the pitch and more on the bench and sidelines.

Football will take time to come to terms with your absence, but we move. If his press conferences are anything to go by, Erling Haaland appears to be the air to that Zlatan-like throne.

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