Chapter 581 Ibrahimovic: I Think It’s Pretty Good!

With Manchester United winning the FA Cup, it means that all domestic competitions in England are over. Other teams have already disbanded and the players are on vacation. Only Manchester United has to continue training to prepare for the Champions League final.

This is the highlight of this season!

All the games in the previous season were just preparations and warm-ups. Thirty-eight league games, six FA Cup games, six League Cup games, and even twelve Champions League games are just to bloom proudly at this moment and become the focus of the world's attention!

The league is over, and Manchester United's Carrington training base is quieter than usual. All echelons have started to take holidays, and only the first team is using the entire training base.

But the atmosphere outside the training ground is more enthusiastic than usual. Reporters from all over the world have flocked to the base to shoot interviews and report to fans around the world about the preparations of this Champions League final team.

Karen Hubert, Manchester United's press officer, has become one of the busiest people during this period. Every day, she needs to receive dozens of news media from all over the world to interview, and also organize press conferences to satisfy those curious media. Hundreds of people often squeezed into the press conference, which could only accommodate more than 60 people.

For a super giant, such a press conference hall is really too small.

However, in the reconstruction plan of the stadium, the size of the press conference hall has been greatly increased to 200 seats.

………………

There are many opinions among reporters on whether Manchester United can beat Real Madrid in the Champions League final, but most of them believe that Real Madrid will beat Manchester United in the final and win the first three consecutive championships since the reform of the Champions League.

In the eyes of these reporters, Manchester United is indeed very strong. This season, they have achieved an unbeaten record in the Premier League. 104 points also created a points record in the five major leagues. Even so far this season, they have maintained 64 unbeaten games in all competitions, but this does not mean that they can beat Real Madrid.

The Champions League is the top club competition in Europe and even the world. Manchester United has a very outstanding performance in this event. They have entered the finals 5 times and won 3 championships. But compared with Real Madrid, it is far behind. The Galacticos have entered the Champions League final 15 times in history and won 12 championships, both of which are the best in Europe.

Especially the current Real Madrid, they have entered the Champions League final four times in the past five years, and won the first three times successfully, and the main framework of the team has not changed, which has enabled these players to accumulate rich experience in winning the Champions League.

As for Manchester United, the Red Devils last won the Champions League ten years ago, and the last time they entered the Champions League final was seven years ago.

………………

The current Manchester United team has only five players with experience in winning the Champions League, namely Bruno, Kante, Cancelo, Maguire and Mata. Among them, Mata won the Champions League with Chelsea in the 2011-2012 season, while Bruno and the other four won the championship with Udinese in the 2014-2015 season.

Even among those who have participated in the Champions League final, in addition to the previous five players, there is only one Valencia player in the Manchester United team. Although Smalling was selected for the Manchester United squad in 2011, he did not get a chance to play.

As for the other players, they all joined Manchester United after 2011 and naturally have no experience in the Champions League final.

It can be said that from the experience of the Champions League final, Real Madrid absolutely crushes Manchester United.

As the top cup competition, the Champions League final is the most experience-oriented, so there are so many reporters who think that Real Madrid will beat Manchester United in the final.

As the captain of Manchester United, Bruno has attended a press conference. He expressed his confidence at the press conference, but there was little response from the audience. Everyone thought that it was just a way to boost the morale of the team, not that they really wanted to beat Real Madrid.

No matter how the media viewed them, after Bruno's speech, Manchester United determined the goal of striving for the championship, and the whole team was training according to Mourinho's plan.

………………

After a day of training, the teammates took a shower in the locker room, changed their clothes, and said goodbye to each other and left.

Today is May 22nd, less than four days away from the final.

After Bruno finished his shooting practice, he returned to the locker room. There were not many people in it. He said hello to the few remaining teammates, took off all his clothes, and dragged his bath towel into the bathroom.

There was already one person there, Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Seeing the respected Swedish veteran, Bruno raised his hand and said hello to him: "Hi, Zlatan."

"Are you done with practice, Bruno?" Ibrahimovic did not look back, he continued to rub the foam on his hair.

"Yeah." Bruno responded, then walked to the shower head next to Ibrahimovic and turned on the faucet. The warm water sprinkled on his body, and his tired body relaxed after a whole day of training, and an indescribable comfort climbed into his heart.

After Ibrahimovic rinsed off all the foam on his head, he was ready to pack up and leave, while Bruno was applying shampoo on his head.

Ibrahimovic turned off his faucet, turned around and walked out. When he reached the door, he suddenly stopped and said to Bruno as if he had just remembered something: "By the way, Bruno. I forgot to thank you."

Bruno asked in surprise: "Thank me? Thank me for what?"

"If you hadn't worked so hard, how could I have reached the Champions League final in the last year of my career?"

Bruno smiled and said: "This has nothing to do with me working hard alone, right? What can I accomplish alone without everyone?"

"Of course, I have many people to thank, but the person I want to thank the most is you. Your role in this team can be seen by everyone."

Blue smiled and shrugged.

………………

Ibrahimovic took a deep look at Bruno, waved his hand, and said goodbye to Bruno: "This is the last game of my career. Whether I can play or not, I will cherish it very much. Thank you, Bruno. See you tomorrow. "

Bruno was a little surprised again. Wasn't there news that Ibrahimovic would play in the American Major League after the end of this season? Why do you think he is planning to hang up his boots now?

"Goodbye, Zlatan." Bruno said.

Bruno started shampooing his hair again.

While rubbing it, he suddenly remembered something. This was actually the first time Ibrahimovic had participated in the Champions League final in his career!

Even though Ibrahimovic has been famous for many years, he has always been the world's top center at his peak. He has won five league championships in the Eredivisie, Serie A, La Liga, Ligue 1 and the Premier League. He can be called a league championship harvester. In world football, there is also a saying that "whoever wins Ibrahimovic wins the league."

In recent years, there have been many "No. 1 players under Melo" in world football, but looking at the past ten years, the real No. 1 player under Melo is definitely Ibrahimovic. The only one is this Swedish god. , has a long peak period comparable to Melo.

But such an outstanding world-class player has never played in the Champions League final!

………………

When he was at Ajax, due to the overall strength of the team, his team could not reach the Champions League final.

He moved to Juventus. Although Juventus is the dominant team in Serie A, their performance in the Champions League was very mediocre. They stopped in the quarterfinals twice, were eliminated by Liverpool once, and were suffocated by Arsenal once.

After the "Calciopoli" broke out in Serie A, Ibrahimovic left Juventus for Inter Milan and once again became the dominant player in Serie A. However, the Nerazzurri's performance in the Champions League was even worse than that of Juventus, and they were eliminated in the knockout rounds for three consecutive years. In the first round, they were eliminated by Valencia, Liverpool and Manchester United respectively, which can also be called the "Sixteenth Hero of the Champions League".

On the eve of Inter Milan's arrival at the top of Europe, Ibrahimovic followed in the footsteps of the "Champions League Champions" and moved to Barcelona. As a result, his old club Inter Milan won the Champions League title and became the "Triple Crown".

The next season, Da Fengxian, who had a falling out with Guardiola, moved to Serie A AC Milan and helped the Rossoneri regain dominance in Serie A. However, the Champions League champion that season was Barcelona, ​​so European football had "Deizibrahimovic" "Whoever loses the Champions League".

After two years at AC Milan, Ibrahimovic moved to the new Ligue 1 tycoon Paris Saint-Germain, which put him further away from the Champions League championship.

In the end, he came to Manchester United and planned to "live out his old age in peace", but he did not expect that he would participate in the first Champions League final of his career when he was nearly thirty-seven years old and in his last season of European football!

No wonder he wants to thank himself!

………………

There will always be regrets of one kind or another in a person's career. Ibrahimovic has many regrets, including the World Cup, European Cup and Champions League. These regrets had no chance to make up for it.

Due to the weak overall strength of the Swedish team, it was difficult for him to participate in the European Cup and World Cup. The Champions League was originally unplanned. Who would have thought that this season Manchester United would go all the way to the finals. Finally, one of the many regrets was made up for. .

Maybe his goal of winning the championship will also arouse some resonance in him?

It's fitting to say goodbye to a career with a Champions League trophy.

It seems that there is one more reason to win the championship!

The next morning, Bruno met Ibrahimovic in the parking lot of the training base.

"Hi Zlatan, good morning."

"Good morning, Bruno."

After saying hello, Bruno asked him: "Zlatan, what do you think... uh, how about a Champions League trophy as a commemoration of retirement?"

Ibrahimovic stared at Bruno for a few times, then nodded: "I think it's pretty good!"

Bruno grinned: "Ha! That's settled!"