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‘Zlatan is a very intelligent guy and a very proud man’

Manchester United manager José Mourinho is looking forward to working with Zlatan Ibrahimovic again next season after declaring the Swedish striker's contract extension will be a formality.

Published: 27 December 2016 07:53 CET

'Zlatan is a very intelligent guy and a very proud man'

Zlatan Ibrahimovic representing Manchester United in the Boxing Day match. Photo: AP Photo/Rui Vieira

Ibrahimovic, 35, arrived from Paris Saint-Germain in July on a one-year deal with an option for a further year, which Mourinho in November indicated United would look to take up.

After the footballer scored once and made two goals in United's 3-1 win over Sunderland on Monday, Mourinho said the clause had not been activated yet, but would be.

“It is activated in his brain and it is activated also in my decisions and in the owners' and the board's. So it is no problem,” said Mourinho.

Ibrahimovic's goal agains Sunderland means that he has scored 50 times across all competitions for club and country during 2016, the year he retired from international football with Sweden.

“I am not really surprised because he is a very intelligent guy and a very proud man,” Mourinho said.

“He decided to come to Manchester United and to the Premier League, to a club with the level of expectation of Manchester United, in the most difficult league in the world for a striker.

“When he decides to come here, it is because he knows he can do it.”

“When we contacted him and he said, yes, he will come, I was sure that he was not coming here to leave the Premier League without proving himself.”

“To leave the Premier League having failed at Manchester United? No way. When such a guy decided to come, I was completely clear that he would be ready and he is ready for more next season. He will be here again,” said Mourinho.

Ibrahimovic set up Daley Blind to put United ahead in the 39th minute and then ran through to score from Paul Pogba's pass before setting up Henrikh Mkhitaryan for a spectacular 'scorpion kick' volley.

United secured a fourth successive Premier League win, and extended their unbeaten record in all competitions to 11 matches.

FC Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas poses after being awarded thewomen's Ballon d'Or award.

FC Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas poses after being awarded thewomen's Ballon d'Or award. Photo: FRANCK FIFE / AFP

Putellas is the third winner of the prize, following in the footsteps of Ada Hegerberg, who won the inaugural women’s Ballon d’Or in 2018, and United States World Cup star Megan Rapinoe, winner in 2019.

Putellas captained Barcelona to victory in this year’s Champions League, scoring a penalty in the final as her side hammered Chelsea 4-0 in Gothenburg.

She also won a Spanish league and cup double with Barca, the club she joined as a teenager in 2012, and helped her country qualify for the upcoming Women’s Euro in England.

Her Barcelona and Spain teammate Jennifer Hermoso finished second in the voting, with Sam Kerr of Chelsea and Australia coming in third.

It completes an awards double for Putellas, who in August was named player of the year by European football’s governing body UEFA.

But it’s also a huge win for Spain as it’s the first time in 61 years that a Spanish footballer – male or female – is crowned the world’s best footballer of the year, and only the second time in history a Spaniard wins the Ballon d’Or.

Former Spanish midfielder Luis Suárez (not the ex Liverpool and Barça player now at Atlético) was the only Spanish-born footballer to win the award in 1960 while at Inter Milan. Argentinian-born Alfredo Di Stefano, the Real Madrid star who took up Spanish citizenship, also won it in 1959.

Who is Alexia Putellas?

Alexia Putellas grew up dreaming of playing for Barcelona and after clinching the treble of league, cup and Champions League last season, her status as a women’s footballing icon was underlined as she claimed the Ballon d’Or on Monday.

Unlike the men’s side, Barca’s women swept the board last term with the 27-year-old, who wears “Alexia” on the back of her shirt, at the forefront, months before Lionel Messi’s emotional departure.

Attacker Putellas, who turns 28 in February, spent her childhood less than an hour’s car journey from the Camp Nou and she made her first trip to the ground from her hometown of Mollet del Valles, for the Barcelona derby on January 6, 2000.

Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas (R) vies with VfL Wolfsburg's German defender Kathrin Hendrich — Putellas plays as a striker for Barça and Spain. GABRIEL BOUYS / POOL / AFP

Exactly 21 years later she became the first woman in the modern era to score in the stadium, against Espanyol. Her name was engraved in the club’s history from that day forward, but her story started much earlier.

She started playing the sport in school, against boys.

“My mum had enough of me coming home with bruises on my legs, so she signed me up at a club so that I stopped playing during break-time,” Putellas said last year.

So, with her parent’s insistence, she joined Sabadell before being signed by Barca’s academy.

“That’s where things got serious… But you couldn’t envisage, with all one’s power, to make a living from football,” she said.

After less than a year with “her” outfit, she moved across town to Espanyol and made her first-team debut in 2010 before losing to Barca in the final of the Copa de la Reina.

She then headed south for a season at Valencia-based club Levante before returning “home” in July 2012, signing for Barcelona just two months after her father’s death.

In her first term there she helped Barca win the league and cup double, winning the award for player of the match in the final of the latter competition.

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