20 injections a day, agony: Ibrahimovic led Milan to the title without a cruciate ligament

Painkillers, injections, a swollen knee without an anterior cruciate ligament: Zlatan Ibrahimovic tells how he suffered six months of agony with a total loss in his leg and still postponed his surgery for a promise to lead AC Milan to the championship.

20 injections a day, agony: Ibrahimovic led Milan to the title without a cruciate ligament

Painkillers, injections, a swollen knee without an anterior cruciate ligament: Zlatan Ibrahimovic tells how he suffered six months of agony with a total loss in his leg and still postponed his surgery for a promise to lead AC Milan to the championship. Now he is paying a high price.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic drummed up his teammates, took the floor at the moment of great triumph - awe-inspiring silence around him. "Keep cool guys. I won't say goodbye," the egocentric star striker yelled through the dressing room after the championship with AC Milan, causing a storm of cheers. But a few days later these words could be obsolete, the self-proclaimed "God" is threatened with the end of his career.

At the age of 40, the body goes on strike - for the long term. As Milan announces, Ibrahimovic will be out for seven to eight months due to an operation on his left knee. The star striker had led the traditional Italian club AC Milan to the championship without an anterior cruciate ligament. As the Swede announced on Instagram, he had been playing with the injury to his left knee for half a year. "For six months I hardly slept because of the pain. I've never suffered so much on and off the field. I made the impossible into the possible," he wrote.

The 40-year-old had to undergo knee surgery in Lyon on Wednesday. The anterior cruciate ligament had to be reconstructed, and there was also a need for improvement on the meniscus. He was given painkillers every day, 20 injections, and fluid was drawn from his knees every week. The joint had simply been swollen since the beginning of the year. "I've only been able to train with the team ten times in the last six months," explained Ibrahimovic.

He also had to take breaks from the game again and again. "I had only one goal in mind: to make my team-mates and the coach Italian champions because I made a promise to them," Ibrahimovic wrote. With a 3-0 win against US Sassuolo on the last day of the game, where he came on as a substitute, he was able to keep it.

His contract with the Rossoneri expires on June 30, and now even a one-year extension at significantly lower salaries is faltering. Such a long break so close to your 41st birthday? An eternity. On his milestone birthday in October, he compared himself to Benjamin Button: "I was born old and I will die young." His body tells him something else - the end as a footballer is probably not far off.