After the coronation in the Italian championship with AC Milan last weekend, joy gave way to bad news for Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The 40-year-old Swedish star had surgery on his left knee on Wednesday in Lyon and will be out of action for 7 to 8 months.
The former PSG striker has just revealed that he has been injured for six months.
The day after this intervention which made it possible to reconstruct his anterior cruciate ligament of the left knee and which will earn him seven to eight months of convalescence, he did not give any clues about his future but wanted to tell his ordeal on Instagram. In great pain, Zlatan Ibrahimovic admitted having “hardly slept for six months” but he kept his “promise” by guiding AC Milan to the title in Italy.
“For the past six months, I’ve been playing without anterior cruciate ligament. I had over 20 injections in six months. They had to dry my knee once a week for six months. I took painkillers every day for six months. I hardly slept for six months because of the pain. I have never suffered so much, on and off the pitch. I made the impossible possible. In my mind I had only one goal, to allow my partners and my trainer (Stefano Pioli) to be crowned Italian champions because I had made them a promise. Today I have a new anterior cruciate ligament and a new trophy”.
The Swede had already had surgery on his left knee in June 2021, which caused him to miss the Euros with Sweden and disrupted his start to the season. He has also suffered from Achilles tendons this season, missing many games. The announced period of unavailability risks taking the former Paris-SG striker, who will celebrate his 41st birthday in early October, towards a new long course of rehabilitation.
Last January he said he wanted to continue with the Lombard club for at least one season and compete in the World Cup with Sweden at the end of the year. It is still uncertain for the first wish, while his team, beaten (2-0) by Poland in the play-offs, will not see Qatar.