Veteran Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic has alleged that he cannot be tamed, as the ageless Milan forward insists he is doing better than Benjamin Button, the fictional character of Hollywood fame.
The 39-year-old has displayed nothing to show his advance in age and has not slowed down in his return to Serie A.
Well-travelled and having performed at the highest levels in Manchester United, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain, Ibrahimovic has netted 10 goals in six Serie A appearance in 2020-21, which is a joint-high alongside Juventus superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and Inter’s impressive forward Romelu Lukaku.
The veteran’s exploits this term has been crucial to Milan’s table-topping performance. With his goals, I Rossoneri is unbeaten so far as they go in pursuit of their first Scudetto since 2010-11, when Ibra had his first spell at the club.
In conversation with UEFA.com recently, the very outspoken, no-holds-barred, forthrightly proud Ibrahimovic was as full of his typical bluster as is he custom. Asked who is less likely to be tamed, Zlatan or a lion, Ibrahimovic did not hesitate: “Zlatan, 100 per cent.
“You can tame a lion, but you cannot tame Zlatan. It’s a different animal.”
On the topic of ageing, in a comparison between himself and Benjamin Button, the fictional character, he replied: “I’m doing it better, because I’m living proof of it. Benjamin Button is just a made-up story.
“I’m the perfect profile for that movie. I’m doing the real movie, and Benjamin Button was a movie for the cinema.”
Ibra touched on passion and motivation: “I’m 39 and with what I have done, I have no obligation to work anymore, but I still have this passion for what I’m doing. I’m never satisfied, and I always want more.
“I don’t see a lot of players who are my age who were, or are, performing like I am doing. The moment a player goes above 30 is [meant to be] when they start to go down and they quit. Above 30 is when I started to become even better.”
He claimed it had nothing to do with money but everything to do with the mind: “I hear athletes from [the] US say that they spent more than one million [dollars] to keep their body in shape. I am 39. I am in shape. I perform at the highest level. I spend zero to stay in shape.
“The secret is not how much you spend, the secret is in your head – how much you want it, how much you’re willing to sacrifice. That is the secret. It’s the mentality and mentality doesn’t cost anything.”
Reflecting on the obvious impact of pushing one’s limits, he admitted the effects on a older body: “I would like to have the brain of Zlatan in a 25-year-old body! I get tired faster now, compared to when I was younger. I’m sleeping a lot because I need to recover more.
“Let’s say after the games, before it probably took me one day to recover and to feel good and really fresh. Now I need between two and three days, which is normal for the age that I am.
“And as long as I can perform, I will play at a high level. The day I stop performing, I will not play anymore because I need to feel alive. I need to feel I give something back.
“I don’t want to have any advantages because I am 39 and they say ‘Hey, you slow down’ and that. No, I want you to consider me on the world-class level and compare me to everybody else, because then I push myself even more.”
