Manchester United striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic has hailed former teammate Lionel Messi as one of a kind.
The Swedish superstar, currently in his first season in English football, played with five-time Ballon d’Or winner Messi for one season in 2009/10 at Barcelona. And, despite a largely disappointing Barcelona spell, Ibrahimovic only has words of praise for Messi, indicating that there’s no bad blood between the two prolific forwards.
In an interview with ESPN, Ibrahimovic had this to say about Messi: “I think Messi is one of a kind. I don’t know if we will see another player do the things that he does because he has his style and to become that player, I don’t think it’s possible.”
He went on to add that playing with Messi is like playing Playstation: “I had the luck to see him every day, I said before, it’s like playing PlayStation: You give the ball to the guy and you start to go through every player and that’s who Messi is.”
Ibrahimovic has acclimatised to life in English football really well after initially struggling to convert the chances coming his way. And now he is just a solitary goal behind Messi in the chase to be crowned as Europe’s top goalscorer in 2016.
Messi, who has yet again been in a phenomenal goalscoring form for Barcelona this year, has 51 goals in the calendar year. Ibrahimovic, meanwhile, has 50 goals in 2016, scoring 33 times for former club Paris Saint-Germain before moving to Manchester United in the summer, where he has 17 goals in 26 appearances in all competitions thus far.
With Messi being done for the year, having embarked on the La Liga winter break, the Swedish striker has one more outing to catch his former teammate and possibly even surpass him with a brace, when Manchester United welcome Middlesbrough to Old Trafford on the last day of 2016.