It’s hard to think of another decent sized country where one player just stands head and shoulders above everybody else when it comes to personality and footballing ability.
When it comes to Sweden’s award for their best male footballer, Zlatan Ibrahimovic was always a shoe in as he’s won it a record 11 times in his career. Despite that, he’s now gone two years without winning it.
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As reported by SVT, Sweden’s “Gold Ball” award for the best male footballer has been awarded to Victor Lindelof of Manchester United. It’s not exactly clear what the criteria for winning the award is, but he’s not exactly been a standout at Old Trafford.
He’s started to show some signs of potentially creating a positive partnership with Harry Maguire, but the United defence has been weak for a while and tend to concede at least one goal a game.
It’s possible that Zlatan is paying the price for moving to a lower profile league in MLS. He scored 31 goals in 31 games for LA Galaxy this season, but that wasn’t enough to see him take Sweden’s grand prize.
We’re still waiting to see where he decides to move in Janaury. Perhaps if he can show he’s still got it and excels in a top league, then he might be able to displace Lindelof next year.
The main talk just now seems to be a return to AC Milan, but it would be fascinating to see him join Lindelof and make a return to Old Trafford for a few months.