Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic has received a call-up to the Sweden national team just days before his 40th birthday.
The forward turns 40 on October 4 and was forced to miss UEFA EURO 2020 due to a knee injury.
He has recovered, but made only a brief substitute appearance for the Rossoneri this season before suffering an aggravation of the Achilles tendon.
Nonetheless, Sweden have called Ibrahimovic for their upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Kosovo and Greece.
Those take place on October 9 and 12 respectively, by which point Ibra will already have celebrated his 40th birthday.
“I decided to call him up because I think he can be involved and contribute to the case,” said coach Janne Andersson.
“He is recovering from an injury, but is also progressing day by day and we will see him next week.”
Ibrahimovic has scored 62 goals in 118 senior caps for Sweden.
Other Serie A players in the Sweden squad are Juventus man Dejan Kulusevski, Bologna midfielder Mattias Svanberg and Albin Ekdal of Sampdoria.
🚨 VM-KVALTRUPPEN! 🚨
Här är spelarna som representerar Sverige i matcherna i VM-kvalet mot Kosovo och Grekland! 🔥🇸🇪
— Svensk Fotboll (@svenskfotboll) September 28, 2021
No, just … don’t.
Highest paid player at the club, has been unfit for months and months….will he actually respond to the call up? It would be very selfish in my opinion. We need him available. Barely set foot on the pitch this season.
Read that earlier in disbelief. Always thought going back to the national was a bad idea for him.
Scraping by (just about) on club level…this could wipe him out. Bring him back for world tournaments if necessary but skip those qualifiers, etc.
Fortunately his contract is based on pro-rata of games played with a base salary so not like last season flat rate 7m.
Lmao what??! The dude is getting paid 7.5 million by Milan and he is barely playing and Sweden called him? For what cheerleading? The dude’s body is dead. Get there faster.