There’s no doubt that Zlatan Ibrahimovic is in the form of
his life at the moment.
Sweden’s mercurial striker is definitely enjoying life in
the French capital, leading the PSG revolution and thrilling the football world
with some cracking goals.
Indeed, over the last 5 days, Ibra has scored 3 of the best
goals you’ll ever see in world football. A scorpion kick against Bastia – part
of a brace, which he seems to be getting a lot of - was followed by 4 goals in
the Champions League against Anderlecht.
Ok, Bastia and Anderlecht probably aren’t quite in the same calibre as Real Madrid or Manchester United but a striker’s job is to score goals – Papiss Cisse & Stevan Jovetic that applies to you - and Ibra is probably the best at doing that right now.
Yes, there’s the likes of Gareth Bale, Lionel Messi and
Cristiano Ronaldo, all wonderful goalscorers at the present time but they’re
not really classical strikers in the same mould as Ibra – they’re more all
round forwards who can play all over the park, orchestrators who just have the
uncanny ability to finish too.
Ibra though as a striker in a class of his own right now, stratospheres ahead of the rest, with only Radamel Falcao and Robert Lewandowski really challenging him as the best out-and-out striker in world football.
In the past, Ibra has had a reputation of being arrogant and
overrated – his time at Barcelona, Internazionale and AC Milan were okay to say
the least, tainted by issues with management on and off the field. Those teams
had lots of stars and Ibra was really only part of the scene and not really the
leader.
Yes, PSG have bought plenty of stars, i.e. Javier Pastore,
Edinson Cavani, Gabriel Ezequiel but Ibra is clearly the leader of the pack and
that perhaps has been the key to finally unlocking the best out of the Swede of
Bosnian descent.
Indeed, as captain of Sweden, Ibra has been more than inspirational with that sensational goal last year against England to open the new swanky Friends Arena in Solna.
It might be quite hard leading a just-above average Swedish
team to the World Cup Finals against a very talented Portugal side led by the
equally inspirational Cristiano Ronaldo and football’s summer extravaganza in
Brazil will be poorer without Ibra being in it.
So in the meantime, football fans should enjoy as much as
they can of Ibra’s sublime goal scoring – it’s the reason why we love this
game.
How is Ibra a "classical striker"? His assist tally has always been about 80% of his goal tally and the few times where he's not played to his fullest is when he's not been allowed to fetch balls deep from the midfield and flanks.
ReplyDeleteHis best performance in Barca came when he rebelled against Pep in the Club World Cup just before their fall-out.