At the age of 37, Zlatan Ibrahimović's days as a professional footballer are numbered. But after scoring 22 goals in his first 27 appearances in Major League Soccer, the big Swede has reminded the world — and most importantly, himself — of his devastating return to power following his serious knee injury in April of 2017.
When Juventus paid Napoli over $100 million for Gonzalo Higuain in 2016, the belief was that the Argentine’s goals would fire the club to a continental title. However, after two seasons in the Champions League with a return of five goals in each campaign, Higuain was offloaded to AC Milan for about half the price this past summer.
Juve then turned to five-time winner Cristiano Ronaldo for the goods. Ronaldo, of course, hasn’t hit less than 10 goals in a single UCL campaign since the 2010-11 season. You can tell what Juventus is trying to achieve with the 33-year-old.
Even before fifth-place AC Milan and first-place Juventus kicked off at the San Siro on Sunday night, we were treated to an already excellent weekend in Serie A action.
On Saturday, Napoli kept the pressure on Juve after defeating Genoa 2-1 at the Marassi. The match was pretty much played underwater, giving extra significance to the three points for the Neapolitan side. Here’s a little sampling of the play out there:
Try though he might, Cristiano Ronaldo was unable to score on his return to Old Trafford with Juventus a couple weeks ago, though he did record an assist . But with Manchester United coming to Allianz Stadium on Wednesday, the Portuguese star reminded his former club how great he’s become since leaving England in 2009 with a brilliant strike.
The amount of attacking talent on display during the Napoli-PSG Champions League match was staggering. On one side you had Neymar, Kylian Mbappé, Julian Draxler and Ángel Di María; on the other Lorenzo Insigne, Dries Mertens, José Calléjon and Marek Hamsik.
But the best player on the pitch in Naples on Tuesday was defender Kalidou Koulibaly.
There are only a handful of players on the planet who can consistently alter games with their combination of vision, creativity and passing technique, but it should come as no surprise that they all ply their trade at Europe’s most feared attacking sides: Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva, Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and Ivan Rakitic, PSG’s Neymar and Marco Verratti, Bayern Munich’s Thiago Alcantara and James Rodriguez.