41-year-old Swedish striker of AC Milan, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, is currently recovering from his knee injury. He is yet to take the field with the Serie A champions this season. But he is determined to return to the pitch and help his teammates. The Legendary forward spoke with CNN's Becky Anderson and said the following words:
"I have a big passion for my game. I have a different situation now with my age and with the teammates I have, but I’m enjoying every day because I think, when you stop football, you will miss it so much that you don’t want to have any regrets saying I should have kept playing."
He added:
"I’m trying to stay at the level with these young guys working hard and just to keep the rhythm. I want to be healthy and, when I’m on that level, then I keep playing and see how far I can take it. As long as I can produce results, I will still play. The day I slow down, I want the people around me to be honest and say he’s slowing down and then I’ll be realistic."
Ibrahimovic on playing with AC Milan for the last 6 months of last season without an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his left knee:
"I think in my case I have this drive, I want to become better every day, I have a mentality that if I don’t work hard enough, I’m not feeling good. And I think that brings you far, it brings you to a level where you challenge your body because it’s all about challenging yourself. How far can you reach? How far can you take your body?"
On his long-term injury suffered at Manchester United:
"That was my first major injury so that everything was new for me. So I didn’t really know what was expecting, what was ahead of me when I was in that situation. At first, I was a little bit afraid because I didn’t really know if I could come back or what would happen. But slowly, I took it day-by-day. It was more a mental thing where I had to keep calm, keep patient and, let’s say, do a boring training."
On rich clubs like PSG and Manchester City and Premier League clubs having foreign investors coming in...
"Money brings possibilities. Money brings alternatives that not maybe other ones cannot bring and the hype in Premier League is much bigger than Serie A and that’s why the economy is much bigger there. But it makes it exciting also because it becomes a challenge for the Italian clubs to beat the other clubs … still we are pro players and the ball is still a round thing and we are doing the same thing."
