Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s best role would be off the bench in Serie A

Now that Zlatan Ibrahimovic has said farewell to MLS, his next move should be to sign with a Serie A club as an offensive weapon off the bench. Will his ego allow it?

He may be 38 years old, but to Zlatan Ibrahimovic that just a number. The numbers he’s most fixated on are the goals he has scored, the one’s he’s plotting to score in the future and which team is willing to pay big bucks for his signature to score more of them.

Now that Ibra has departed the Los Angeles Galaxy, the race to sign him is on. Several Serie A clubs are rumored to want the Swedish striker, including struggling AC Milan. For Ibrahimovic, it would be a return to Italy after he spent two seasons at Juventus starting in 2004, followed by three at Inter Milan. By 2009, he was off to Barcelona. He would later return to play for AC Milan from 2010 to 2012.

At the time, Ibrahimovic was in his prime. It’s his ability to outsmart defenders and score goals that has extended his career well into his late 30s, something most strikers are unable to do. Goals aside, Ibrahimovic is a physical specimen. You have to be when players 15 years younger than you are trying to knock you off the ball.

Zlatan also doesn’t lack confidence. He recently declared his time with MLS as being highly successful, although he never helped his team to a trophy (a dubious first for his career). To Ibrahimovic, success is measured by what he can do and how it impacts the team. It’s not about the team. In the end, the Ibra brand conquered MLS, not the player himself.

That’s a problem, especially when the clubs interested in you are struggling. Aside from AC Milan, there’s Napoli, Bologna and Fiorentina also interested in him ahead of the January transfer window that opens on New Year’s Day. Tottenham, with new manager Jose Mourinho, have also been rumored to be interested.

None of these teams are likely to win anything this season. That doesn’t seem to matter to Ibrahimovic as long as he scored goals and can run his mouth.

This is nothing new. Ibrahimovic has had an extreme sense of self-belief from the very start of his career. Often speaking in the third person, the Swede has never made compromises. At 18, he was offered a trial at Arsenal by Arsene Wenger, but rejected the offer after, according to London’s Daily Telegraph, he said: “I couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘No way, Zlatan doesn’t do auditions.'”

What Ibrahimovic needs to do now is practice some humility and realize that it’s not likely a striker his age will start in Serie A or any other league in Europe. What is needed from him at this point is leadership and the ability to come off the bench late in a game to change things. Imagine Ibrahimovic coming off the bench every week for the final 30 minutes of a game? Any opponent with a halftime lead would quake in their boots.

It’s not likely Ibrahimovic would go for such a role. It’s opposed to everything he’s ever been. He’s not a mentor. He’s not about giving back. Ibrahimovic is about Ibrahimovic. He may still have a fine final chapter with a new club, but it’s a shame to think there’s so much more he could do by taking on a different attitude at this stage of his career.