Zlatan Ibrahimovic departs PSG in the most Zlatan Ibrahimovic way possible
zlatan Ibrahimovic made his final appearance in a Paris Saint-Germain shirt against Nantes on Saturday night, and bowed out in typically bombastic fashion.
The Swedish international scored a brace in the 4-0 rout, netting goals in the 17th and 89th minutes to break the record for the number of goals scored by a PSG player in a single season. His second goal was his 38th of the season, which saw him surpass Carlos Bianchi’s club scoring record, set in the 1977/78 season.
But Ibrahimovic did not wait all the while until the seventeenth minute to revel in the adoration of the Parc des Princes crowd. The match was in fact paused after just ten minutes – with PSG already 1-0 up – so that the entire crowd could give the striker a standing ovation.
The tenth minute was selected in honour of his shirt number, and supporters further commemorated the moment by donning Ibrahimovic face masks, 40,000 of which had been distributed by the club among the terraces.
The love-in did not end there. The Swede – who took to social media earlier in the week to proclaim that he came to PSG “like a King, (and leave) like a legend” – was withdrawn to yet another standing ovation shortly after scoring his second goal.
Not only that, but his two children ran onto the pitch to escort him back to the team bench. One wore a shirt emblazoned with “King”, with the other bearing the name “Legend”.
Ibrahimovic has scored no fewer than 154 goals in his 179 games for the French champions, and is still widely regarded as one of the best strikers in the world despite his age of 34.
He has been heavily linked with a move to England ahead of the new season, with Manchester United thought to be leading the race for his signature.
No comments:
Post a Comment