The 40-year-old is showing no signs of slowing down as he has already netted eight goals and registered two assists in 18 Serie A appearances this season for AC Milan.
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Zlatan Ibrahimovic doesn’t have any retirement plans in place as he wants to play for as long as he can. The 40-year-old is showing no signs of slowing down as he has already netted eight goals and registered two assists in 18 Serie A appearances this season for AC Milan. Although the Swedish footballer has struggled with both Achilles tendon problems and knee issues this season, forcing him to miss a number of games, he remains an important player for the Rossoneri both on and off the pitch.
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Ghost rider pic.twitter.com/8PGiTPhM2k
— Zlatan Ibrahimović (@Ibra_official) March 13, 2022
Speaking to UEFA, Ibrahimovic first discussed not forgetting his roots despite reaching the top of the footballing world. “Whatever happens to me – success, money, fame, whatever – I will still be the same person. I will not change. Either you like me or you don’t like me, but I was not born into this world to convince people to like me.”
Milan qualified for the UEFA champions League after almost eight years but failed to reach the round of 16 as they finished at the bottom of their group, consisting of Liverpool, Atletico Madrid and FC Porto. The veteran spoke about how it feels to play in Europe’s elite club competition with Milan at the age of 40.
“I play with a lot of emotion for Milan because it’s a club that gave me happiness, it gave me a lot of things, and I think I’ve spent the most years at Milan out of all the clubs I’ve represented. It was nice to return to the UEFA Champions League with the club this season.
“After a couple of years struggling and not being in the Champions League, everybody was super excited and super happy to be back.
“I think it’s an amazing tournament. I scored a couple of goals that I enjoyed, and I got the opportunity to play against the best teams and players in Europe. How do I feel about the fact that I never won it?
“In two ways. To win it would be amazing. To not win it would not change me as a player. If I win it, it doesn’t mean that I’d be a better player because I am the best player. This has been proven; the best player doesn’t win everything.”
Ibrahimovic is one of the oldest players to play in Europe’s top-flight football. The Swedish legend discussed the future and plans regarding retirement. “The future is yet to be written. I don’t plan. Let’s see what happens. I don’t want to regret stopping football and then saying that I could continue to play football because then I’d regret it for the rest of my life, seeing that I could have continued.
“I want to play as long as I can. The reality is I’ll play until I see that someone is better than me, so I’m still playing.
“I know one day it will stop, and I won’t have that adrenaline anymore. This is a problem for every football player because you have adrenaline when you play football. That adrenaline, you will never get in doing something else because we are programmed. Every day we do the same thing.
“We wake up, we prepare, we train, we eat, and we rest. The next day, it’s the same thing. For 20 years, you do these things, and you get adrenaline from them.
“So when suddenly you stop, you don’t have this agenda, you don’t get the adrenaline anymore. And when it stops, you have to take it from there and begin from zero and start something new.”
The 40-year-old is one of the fittest footballers in world football. He is an extremely disciplined and hardworking athlete who looks after his body very well, allowing him to push beyond his limits. He is Sweden’s all-time leading goal scorer and currently is on international duty looking to help his country qualify for the 2022 World Cup.
