According to recent reports, Everton has joined the line of clubs preparing a deal for Zlatan Ibrahimović.
Having played in the English Premier League, Ibrahimović could be tempted to go back there once again. One of the main reasons is that the Toffees are reportedly offering a much higher salary than the others.
After the end of the 2019 MLS season, Ibrahimović is now a free agent, meaning that his new club will not have to spend any money on transfer fees. Instead, the club has the luxury to offer him much higher wages.
A recent rumor coming from Everton has it that the legendary Swede would get around $5.3M per year if he decided to move to Goodison Park.
If the deal goes through, Ibrahimović would become the highest-payed Everton player, leaving Bernard behind, whose contract gets him about $4.1M a year.
The biggest obstacle on his way to joining Everton is that this club is currently manager-less. After sacking Marco Silva last week, Everton is still on the hunt for the new boss, with several big names in the game.
One of those is the recently-sacked Napoli manager Carlo Ancelotti, with whom Ibrahimović worked before during their time in PSG.
Going Back to Italy?
Swedish reporter Jennifer Wegerup, who prides herself for being a personal friend of Zlatan, has pointed AC Milan is one of the top candidates for signing the player.
The statement doesn’t seem strange, considering that the Rossoneri are in need of a prolific striker. At the moment of writing, AC Milan’s number 9, Krzysztof Piątek only has four goals to his name.
Singing for Rossoneri would mean going back to the club where Ibrahimović had some of the finest moments of his career.
However, AC Milan is not the only Italian heavyweight in the pursuit of the Swede’s signature. The club’s arch-rival, Inter Milan could also join the race. The former owner of the club Massimo Moratti has stated that if he were still in charge, he would have made him a deal.
Then there’s also Napoli, a team looking to shake things up by not only making changes in the club management, but also in the squad.
Zlatan the Journeyman
Zlatan started his career in his hometown club Malmö FF, where he spent three seasons before attracting the eye of Ajax scouts who signed him in 2001.
He spent four seasons in the Dutch capital before being signed by Juventus. Italy was his home for the next five years, first in Turin, then in Milan, where he spent three years playing for Inter.
With 25 goals in 35 matches in his last season in Inter jersey, Ibrahimović attracted the attention of superstar-packed Barcelona. He signed for Barça for a fee of nearly $75M.
Unfortunately for him, his Barcelona stunt didn’t go as planned. After one season in Spain, Ibrahimović had to go back to Milan, but this time, he chose the ‘red and black club’.
After two seasons in AC Milan, he was signed by PSG where he achieved his record goal-scoring high of 38 goals in 31 matches.
His impressive stats made Jose Mourinho-led Manchester United sign him on a free transfer while giving him a salary worth $27 million a year, even though he was 34 years old at the time.
Despite doing well in the early stages of his Manchester United campaign, Ibrahimović picked up an injury, which left him sidelined for a large part of the season. As a result, he had to move overseas, signing for LA Galaxy in 2018, accepting a 95% pay cut.
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In America, Ibrahimović scored a total of 52 goals in 56 matches over the course of two seasons, proving that at the age of 38, he still has a lot to offer to the beautiful game.
Retirement is out of the question; we’ll definitely be seeing Ibra playing for at least one more season! The only question is where?
Annie Adkins Annie is a seasoned veteran in sports betting and has been working in the industry for over 7 years. Her goal of educating others and sharing her knowledge on the topic has brought her to VegasOdds.com where she regularly contributes to our cornerstone guides to help readers improve their sports betting game. If you don’t find her writing, you can bet she’ll be studying sports stats! Let’s block ads! (Why?)
