{"id":579499,"date":"2021-01-18T17:54:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T22:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=579499"},"modified":"2021-01-18T17:54:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T22:54:00","slug":"mario-mandzukic-to-bring-firepower-to-ac-milan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/01\/18\/mario-mandzukic-to-bring-firepower-to-ac-milan\/","title":{"rendered":"Mario Mandzukic to Bring Firepower to AC Milan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fabrizio Romano and, quite surprisingly, <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/4cde5509\/Zlatan-Ibrahimovic\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Zlatan Ibrahimovic, <\/a>have both confirmed that <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/afa0d4e0\/Mario-Mandzukic\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mario Mandzukic<\/a> will be an <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/clubs\/ac-milan\/\" target=\"_self\">AC Milan<\/a> player. The veteran European striking duo brings leadership and fire to the young club and makes the <em>Rossoneri<\/em>&#8216;s goal of winning the\u00a0<em>Scudetto\u00a0<\/em>more and more realistic.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Ibrahimovic announces to Sky Sport: \u201cMario Mandzukic has signed his contract, he\u2019s joining AC Milan&#8230; so we\u2019ll be in two to scare the opponents!\u201d \ud83d\udd34\u26ab\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Ibra?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Ibra<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/ACMilan?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#ACMilan<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PeppeDiSte?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@PeppeDiSte<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1351291785784516608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 18, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Mario Mandzukic Brings Fire to Table-Topping AC Milan<\/h2>\n<h3>Mandzukic&#8217;s Juventus Stint<\/h3>\n<p>The last season that saw consistent playing time for Mandzukic was the 2018\/19 season. At the time, he played for <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/clubs\/juventus\/\" target=\"_self\">Juventus<\/a>. In 25 matches he scored nine goals and provided five assists. Those aren&#8217;t eye-popping numbers, but more than enough to be a valuable bench option.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s important to keep in mind how important Mandzukic was to Massimo Allegri&#8217;s Juventus squads. They won the\u00a0<em>Scudetto\u00a0<\/em>every single year and made a Champions League final appearance. Although Juventus fell 4-1 in that final against <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/clubs\/real-madrid\/\" target=\"_self\">Real Madrid<\/a>, Mandzukic was the lone goal scorer.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s vastly experienced in Serie A, and for one of the best clubs in recent memory. There&#8217;s no doubt that he knows how the game flows in Italy and will prove to be a valuable asset to Milan.<\/p>\n<h3>What Mandzukic Brings<\/h3>\n<p>First of all, Mandzukic will compete for the back-up striker position with <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/20730eae\/Rafael-Leao\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rafael Le\u00e3o<\/a>. However, Le\u00e3o can also play well on the wing, which will surely allow Mandzukic to see more time on the pitch.<\/p>\n<p>Mandzukic is a ball hawk who never shies down from the competition. He&#8217;s a fantastic option to have come off the bench to score a needed goal or to solidify a win. Also, he can see plenty of time in Europa League as Ibrahimovic rests up for Serie A. Although he hasn&#8217;t seen consistent time in Europe for nearly two years, he&#8217;s still 34-years-old. Ibrahimovic didn&#8217;t miss a step coming back to Europe after his stint in the MLS.<\/p>\n<p>The Croatian is also a leader. This showed at Juventus, and he became a fan-favourite quite quickly. This Milan squad is the youngest in all of Italy and will benefit from more veterans on the squad. Milan has shown great perseverance throughout the whole season, a major factor as to why they&#8217;re first place in Italy, and Mandzukic&#8217;s &#8220;never say die&#8221; mentality will prove to be a fantastic boost.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"_C8VeZpIRgdVES080GK5cA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1200158572\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'_C8VeZpIRgdVES080GK5cA',sig:'LjZG_XRM7mpQb-oq4s2y6Ns4cP4OnC7mUyZeLtHP63g=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1200158572',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fabrizio Romano and, quite surprisingly, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, have both confirmed that Mario Mandzukic will be an AC Milan player. The veteran European striking duo brings leadership and fire to the young club and makes the Rossoneri&#8216;s goal of winning the\u00a0Scudetto\u00a0more and more realistic. Ibrahimovic announces to Sky Sport: \u201cMario Mandzukic has signed his contract, he\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2248,"featured_media":579507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1363,7188,5,28],"tags":[49,7485,791,48,136,139],"class_list":["post-579499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ac-milan","category-rumours","category-serie-a","category-transfers","tag-ac-milan","tag-ac-milan-transfer-news","tag-mario-mandzukic","tag-serie-a","tag-world-football","tag-zlatan-ibrahimovic"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}