Zlatan Ibrahimovic is back in the Sweden team
In truth, this isn’t actually a massive surprise, is it?
Since retiring from international football five years ago, rumours that Zlatan Ibrahimovic might reverse the decision have never completely gone away.
Now, with Sweden set to appear at Euro 2020 (do we still call it Euro 2020?) in a matter of months, the news that their record scorer has indeed opted to come back to the national team has been confirmed.
Now 39, Zlatan has managed 16 goals for AC Milan this season. Having opened the door to a potential return to the Swedish side a couple of months back, he has been called up for their games against Georgia and Kosovo over next week’s international break.
Zlatan är tillbaka i landslaget! 🔥🇸🇪 #viärsverige
— Svensk Fotboll (@svenskfotboll) March 16, 2021
And as for the rest, well, we haven’t looked yet, but we can probably guess how it goes. Zlatan has almost certainly posted something to his social media pages in which he likens his return to that of a lion or God. At the very least, he’ll have announced it in third person. Guaranteed.
All the irritating social media stuff aside, it’s right to say that his return is genuinely impressive stuff. Should he feature in either of the games against Georgia or Kosovo, it will mark 20 years since international debut, which came against Azerbaijan in a qualifier for the 2002 World Cup.
He managed 62 goals in 116 internationals before calling time on his international career after Sweden’s earlier than expected exit from Euro 2016.
