Counterpressing
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Old men defy the madness of youth
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Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Photo: AP / Gregorio Borgia
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Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Joaquin are now 40 years old, Cristiano Ronaldo is 36 years old – three examples of how not everyone has to be under 20 in modern football.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic has never been at a loss for a good saying. And nobody has yet had to convince him of his paramount importance in world football by force of arms. Small example: when the Swede left Paris Saint-Germain a good five years ago, he said the golden sentence: “I came as a king, I left as a legend.”
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Not many then believed what is now a reality. The legend is alive. The striker is 40 years old, but he doesn’t want to have anything to do with retirement. He plays a more than sprightly role at the top Italian club AC Milan, and recently he’s back in the squad of the Swedish national team – alongside Alexander Isak (22), Mattias Svanberg (22) and Dejan Kulusevski (21), who are his sons could.
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Info The best sayings from Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Photo: afp
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Ibrahimovic is the eloquent leader of a squad of old men who persistently defy the trend towards youth madness – almost like the Gauls in the Asterix books defy the mighty Roman Empire. And who knows which pot of magic potion Zlatan Ibrahimovic and his peers fell into.
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It is no longer just goalkeepers who have always been credited with a longer durability at the heights of top-class football. Faryd Mondragon played his last World Cup game at 43, Pat Jennings was still playing at 41, and Dino Zoff was world champion at 40. Outfield players retired at the age of 30 even in Zoff’s time in the 1980s. Today Cristiano Ronaldo shoots the nets at 36 for Manchester United, Giorgio Chiellini cleans up in the penalty area at 36 for Juventus Turin and plows Joaquin over the wing at 40 for Betis Sevilla. And they do so even though every year the academies of the big clubs send competitors to the professional departments who, at 16, understand more about tactics, diet and shooting technique than any football professor 20 years ago.
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What is the secret of the great old men if they shouldn’t have fallen into the cauldron of magic potion or if they step into a fountain of youth every morning? For Ibrahimovic, of course, the solution to the riddle is himself. That doesn’t surprise anyone. Another nice word contribution: “I’m getting older, of course, I understand my body much better. He’s older, although my mind is younger and I look better and better. ”Cristiano Ronaldo certainly feels that way too, who has always been said to have a great tendency towards extensive personal hygiene.
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However, both also benefit from scientific progress, even if they are reluctant to admit it. Sports medicine has made athletes so transparent that so-called load control brings the elderly through the difficult tests of everyday life – without the ticket for artificial joints after the end of their career.
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22 pictures Record players in the Champions League
Photo: dpa/Rui Vieira
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That is why Ibrahimovic, Ronaldo and Joaquin can continue to hunt for records. Whether they can attack the top positions in football history is still questionable. The legendary English striker Stanley Matthews made his last competitive game as a professional five days after his 50th birthday. And the Japanese Kazujoshi Miura is under contract with Yokohama FC at the age of 54.
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Proverbs have not been handed down from either of them. So, at the end, Ibrahimovic again: “I feel like Benjamin Button. I was born old and I will die young. ”Wonderful.
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