Sometimes, you don’t always get what you want, even if you’re called Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
The Swedish striker, who recently signed for Manchester United after running down his contract at Paris Saint-Germain, once made a wish that now looks unlikely to come true.
According to his agent, Mino Raiola, who was speaking to Radio CRC in Italy, relayed by Corriere dello Sport, the former Juventus star once told him he wanted to finish his career in Italy, at a club he hadn’t been a part of yet.
Asked by the Naples based radio station if Napoli had made an approach for his client over the summer, the Dutch-born negotiator was tight-lipped, but let something slip that could frustrate a few fans of the Serie A club.
He said: “Was Ibra approached by Napoli this summer? The presidents who talk to me, they know that what is said remains between us. We chose United recently, it was our goal, Ibra was also the club’s aim, and we’re now where we needed to be.
“All I can say is at Ciro Ferrara’s farewell game at the San Paolo, Zlatan called me and told me: ‘Mino, I want to end my career in Naples’. That’s because the mentality of the Neapolitans is the one closest to his, and if the league remained as it was back then, he might have done just that.”
It would appear that the decline of the likes of Inter Milan and AC Milan, two of Ibrahimovic’s old clubs, had a big part in his decision to stay away from Italy this time around.
Furthermore, it’s also worth pointing out that only one club in the country could have possibly afforded his wages, and we doubt Juventus, who bought Higuain for €90m later on in the window, would’ve broken their wage budget to accommodate Zlatan.
There’s still time, of course, for this to happen, as the former Sweden international doesn’t seem to be ageing at present, but the likelihood of Napoli gambling on a 35/36-year-old Ibra is small.
Our bet is either retirement or the United States for Zlatan post-United.
