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MILAN

Zlatan on Arsenal ‘snub’: ‘I don’t do auditions’

AC Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic has said he snubbed the chance to join Arsenal because Gunners boss Arsene Wenger wanted him to have a trial period.

Published: 5 March 2012 07:49 CET
Zlatan on Arsenal 'snub': 'I don't do auditions'

Ibrahimovic was one of Europe’s most highly-rated teenage players when he met Wenger in 2000 to discuss a possible move to the Premier League club.

But Wenger was keen to check out Ibrahimovic during a trial first and the Swede was unhappy at what he perceived to be a lack of respect for his talents.

Ibrahimovic told The Sun: “Arsene gave me the famous red and white jersey – the number nine shirt with Ibrahimovic on it and I was so pleased I even posed for a picture wearing it.

“It was a fantastic moment for me. Arsenal had a great team then and here was an Arsenal shirt made just for me.

“So then I waited for him to convince me that I should join Arsenal. But he didn’t even try.

“He never actually made me a serious offer, it was more, ‘I want to see how good you are, what kind of player you are. Have a trial’.

“I couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘No way, Zlatan doesn’t do auditions’.

“I thought ‘You either know me or you don’t and if you don’t know me you can’t really want me’.”

Ibrahimovic instead chose to join Dutch club Ajax before spells at Juventus, Inter Milan and Barcelona.

The 30-year-old starred as Milan took a 4-0 lead in their Champions League tie against Arsenal last month and he has another chance to show Wenger what he missed out on when the Italian club travel to the Emirates Stadium for the second leg on Tuesday.

“I definitely made the right choice,” he added.

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MILAN

Romanian billionaire and seven others die in Milan plane crash

A light aircraft piloted by Romanian billionaire Dan Petrescu crashed into an empty office building near Milan on Sunday, killing him, his wife and son, and all five others aboard.

Published: 4 October 2021 09:07 CEST
Police and rescue teams outside the office building where a small plane crashed in the Milan suburb of San Donato.
Police and rescue teams outside the office building where a small plane crashed in the Milan suburb of San Donato on October 3rd. Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP

The single-engine Pilatus PC-12 had taken off from Milan’s Linate airport shortly after 1pm headed for Olbia in the north of the Italian island of Sardinia.

It crashed just a few minutes later into a building in San Donato Milanese, a town southeast of Milan, according to aviation agency ANSV, which has opened an investigation.

Witnesses said the plane was already in flames before it crashed into an office building undergoing renovations.

Petrescu’s 65-year-old wife, who also had French nationality, and their son Dan Stefano, 30, were killed.

Italian media identified the other passengers as entrepreneur Filippo Nascimbene, a 33-year-old from Lombardy, with his wife, young son and mother-in-law, who have French nationality.

Petrescu, 68, was one of Romania’s richest men. He headed a major construction firm and owned a string of hypermarkets and malls. He also held Germany nationality, the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.

Flames engulfed the two-storey building, next to the yellow line subway terminus.

“The impact was devastating,” Carlo Cardinali, of the Milan fire brigade, told news agency Ansa.

Deputy prosecutor Tiziana Siciliano was quoted by Corriere as saying that the plane’s black box had been recovered.

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