Zlatan Ibrahimovic: “I’m staying at Barcelona!”
The Swedish striker, who made an expensive move to the Spanish club Barcelona right before the last season, was expected to perform better than their swapped striker Samuel Eto’o. Eto’o was a fabulous centre forward who was able to score a lot for the club and made his way to the top. The Cameroonian scored 108 goals in only 145 appearances for the Spanish Giants Barcelona, even though he started his career in the club’s rivals, Real Madrid.
Before the start of the previous season, it was rumoured that the Cameroon international is going to be involved in a deal with Inter Milan, where he is going to be swapped with the “best striker” in Italian football, Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Many thought it was a very wise move while others thought otherwise.
However, the deal was struck and Barcelona had to pay a good sum of money along with Samuel Eto’o, who actually scored a large number of goals for the club. With Zlatan Ibrahimovic included in the Barcelona’s starting-eleven, many though that the team might be invincible; especially with the likes of Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta.
Like Samuel Eto’o, Ibrahimovic was supposed to play as a centre forward so he could score goals for the club but it did not turn out the way the people thought it would. Even though Ibrahimovic (or Ibra, as they call him) was not a total flop in the club, he just did not manage to come up to his expectations.
The fans thought that he might be someone like Samuel Eto’o who could make runs inside the 18yard box with individual efforts but Ibra was a different sort of a player. He was seen passing the ball a bit too much and he was also seen shooting the ball from a relatively longer distance. Barcelona are famous for their passing techniques and how they play “tiki-taka” football, but Ibra was definitely not what Barcelona wanted. He only managed to score 16 goals in 29 appearances and the fans definitely thought that he is going to take his time to settle down with the new club, but how much?
Later during his season with Barcelona, he got injured and was left out on the bench as Bojan and Pedro were given a chance to prove themselves. Pedro was the player who shined brightly and scored more goals than Ibrahimovic. He was able to find the net 23 times, even though he was sometimes utilized only as a power-sub.
The Swedish striker was rumoured to make a move out of Camp Nou because of a disappointing season and because of the new competition, David Villa. With Villa in Barcelona’s squad, chances of Ibrahimovic playing in the first-team are definitely thin. He was even rumoured with a swap deal with Kaka, who is currently playing for the Spanish champion’s rivals, Real Madrid; and he is a big disappointment in the Spanish club. Even though with such rumours flying around, Ibra stayed calm and did not comment on anything until his last press conference with Vaalerenga. He told the press that he is going to stay in the Spanish club and he added on to it by saying that it was the “best club in the world!”
He then said that he was in the Spanish club to win the Champions League and he is going to keep working on the objective. He was not wrong about this, as he was the player who definitely came in handy for the Catalan giants during their “tough” match against Real Madrid and Arsenal. He was the only goal scorer against Madrid, and was the player who scored two goals against the English club Arsenal, when the team visited England during the Champions League. Even though the match was drawn 2-2, Lionel Messi totally destroyed the team by scoring 4 goals against them when they visited Camp Nou.
Ibrahimovic told the press that he wants his fans to ignore all the rumours as he is going nowhere and is going to be a part of Barcelona for now!
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