{"id":590827,"date":"2021-05-10T11:25:25","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T15:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=590827"},"modified":"2021-05-10T11:25:25","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T15:25:25","slug":"zlatan-ibrahimovic-injury-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/05\/10\/zlatan-ibrahimovic-injury-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Zlatan Ibrahimovi\u0107 Injury Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Zlatan Ibrahimovi\u0107 was forced off the pitch in the second half of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/05\/10\/ac-milan-fikayo-tomori\/\" target=\"_self\">AC Milan&#8217;s<\/a> 3-0 drubbing of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/05\/07\/five-matches-to-watch-in-europe\/\" target=\"_self\">Juventus<\/a> last night due to a knee injury. While jumping for a header, he landed awkwardly on his left knee and was quickly subbed off for Ante Rebic. The Zlatan Ibrahimovi\u0107 injury comes at a poor time for Milan.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/gianlucadimarzio.com\/en\/milan-ibrahimovic-s-mri-postponed-the-latest-on-his-injury\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gianluca di Marzio<\/a>, the injury does not seem as bad as originally thought. Although still waiting for the MRI results, Milan expects Ibrahimovi\u0107 to likely miss the next two matches. These matches are against Torino on Wednesday and Cagliari on Sunday. If this is the case, the Swede should return in a pivotal last match of the season versus second-place <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/04\/29\/leicester-city-robin-gosens\/\" target=\"_self\">Atalanta<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Zlatan Ibrahimovi\u0107 Injury Could See Forward Miss Two Matches<\/h2>\n<h3>The Worst Situation is Avoided<\/h3>\n<p>Milan will be celebrating the Juventus victory until the next match, and for good reason. They&#8217;re inching closer to their first Champions League bid since 2013, and did so in their first away victory over their rivals in a decade. The\u00a0<em>Rossoneri\u00a0<\/em>never looked back after Ibrahimovi\u0107&#8217;s injury, but instead took it upon themselves to completely take over the match.<\/p>\n<p>Milan, however, are still a better team with Ibrahimovi\u0107 on the pitch. When he&#8217;s not scoring goals, he&#8217;s still the vocal leader. The squad looks up to him as the main motivator and heart of the team.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Zlatan got AC Milan&#8217;s players together for a motivational pre-match huddle.<\/p>\n<p>They went out and beat Juventus away for the first time in a decade \ud83e\udd81 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/S0MTnugE6M\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/S0MTnugE6M<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ESPNFC\/status\/1391501990790901760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 9, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nThe next two matches are very winnable. Milan will enter as favorites even without Ibrahimovi\u0107. However, they will need his return versus Atalanta as the Bergamo side remains one of the most exciting teams in all of Europe. There&#8217;s no room for error for Milan now.<\/p>\n<h3>Milan&#8217;s Attack With Zlatan Ibrahimovi\u0107<\/h3>\n<p>Expect Stefano Pioli to use a similar attack as to what he used in the Juventus match when Ibrahimovi\u0107 went down. Using two attacking midfielders in Hakan Calhanoglu and Brahim Diaz paid off, so Pioli will likely run with that again versus Torino.<\/p>\n<p>Alexis Saelemaekers is not flashy but consistently proves to be a difference-maker with his hustle play and motor. These three will start behind a striker, which will likely be Rebic. Although not a natural number nine, Rebic is the squad&#8217;s best goal scorer behind Ibrahimovi\u0107.<\/p>\n<p>Mario Mandzukic and Rafael Le\u00e3o will also be readily available on the bench.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"xA5JblpQTzBhuh0lup25FQ\" 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\/1232796082\" 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:'xA5JblpQTzBhuh0lup25FQ',sig:'E7X5MYTYBcVQ-1LBHj4gbMQ15ydWr8xR2zCRdLuBDM0=',w:'594px',h:'370px',items:'1232796082',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>Zlatan Ibrahimovi\u0107 was forced off the pitch in the second half of AC Milan&#8217;s 3-0 drubbing of Juventus last night due to a knee injury. While jumping for a header, he landed awkwardly on his left knee and was quickly subbed off for Ante Rebic. The Zlatan Ibrahimovi\u0107 injury comes at a poor time for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2248,"featured_media":590846,"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":[5,1363],"tags":[139],"class_list":["post-590827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-serie-a","category-ac-milan","tag-zlatan-ibrahimovic"],"modified_by":"Tom Cunningham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590827","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=590827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}