Chapter 581 Ibrahimovic: I think it’s pretty good!

With Manchester United winning the FA Cup, it means that all domestic competitions in England have ended. Other teams have already disbanded and the players have gone on vacation. Only Manchester United has to continue training to prepare for the Champions League final.

This is the highlight of this season!

All the games in the previous season were just preparations and warm-ups. Thirty-eight league games, six FA Cup games, six League Cup games, and even twelve Champions League games, were just for this moment to bloom with pride and become the focus of the world!

The leagues are over, and Manchester United's Carrington training base is a little quieter than usual. All the teams have started their holidays, and only the first team is using the entire training base.

But the atmosphere outside the training ground was more enthusiastic than usual. Reporters from all over the world flocked to the base to film and interview, reporting to fans around the world on the preparations of this Champions League final team.

Manchester United's press officer Karen Hubert has become one of the busiest people during this period. She has to receive dozens of interviews from news media from all over the world every day, and she also has to organize press conferences to satisfy those curious media. The press conference site, which originally could only accommodate more than 60 people, often has hundreds of people squeezed in.

For a super wealthy family, such a press conference hall is really too small.

However, in the stadium's reconstruction plan, the size of the press conference hall has been greatly increased to 200 seats.

………………

Reporters have many opinions on whether Manchester United can beat Real Madrid in the Champions League final, but most of them believe that Real Madrid will beat Manchester United in the final and win the first three consecutive championships since the Champions League was reformed.

In the eyes of these reporters, Manchester United is indeed very strong. They have been unbeaten in the Premier League this season, and their 104 points have set a points record in the top five leagues. So far this season, they have maintained an unbeaten record of 64 games in all competitions, but this does not mean that they can defeat Real Madrid.

The Champions League is the top club competition in Europe and even the world. Manchester United has performed very well in this competition. They have reached the finals five times and won three championships. However, compared with Real Madrid, they are far behind. The Galacticos have reached the Champions League finals 5 times in history and won 3 championships, both of which are the best in Europe.

Especially the current Real Madrid, they have reached the Champions League final four times in the past five years, winning the first three times, and the main framework of the team has not changed, which has enabled these players to accumulate rich experience in winning the Champions League.

As for Manchester United, the Red Devils last won the Champions League ten years ago, and the last time they reached the Champions League final was seven years ago.

………………

In the current Manchester United team, only five players have experience in winning the Champions League: Bruno, Kante, Cancelo, Maguire and Mata. Among them, Mata won the Champions League with Chelsea in the 2011-2012 season, while Bruno and the other four won the championship with Udinese in the 2014-2015 season.

Even among those who have participated in the Champions League final, in addition to the previous five players, there is only one player from Valencia in the Manchester United team. Although Smalling was selected for the Manchester United roster in 1, he did not get a chance to play.

As for the other players, they all joined Manchester United after 2011 and naturally have no experience of participating in the Champions League final.

It can be said that based on the experience of the Champions League final, Real Madrid absolutely crushed Manchester United.

As the top cup competition, the Champions League final is the one that requires the most experience, so there are so many reporters who believe that Real Madrid will beat Manchester United in the final.

As the captain of Manchester United, Bruno has attended a press conference, where he expressed confidence, but there was little response from the audience. Everyone thought it was just a way to boost the team's morale, not that they really wanted to beat Real Madrid.

No matter how the media views them, after Bruno's speech, the entire Manchester United team has determined to work hard to win the championship, and the entire team is training according to Mourinho's plan.

………………

After a day of training, the teammates took a shower, changed their clothes in the locker room, said goodbye to each other and left.

Today is May 22nd, and there are less than four days left until the finals.

After Bruno finished practicing shooting, he returned to the locker room. There were not many people in it. He said hello to the few remaining teammates, took off all his clothes, and went into the bathroom holding his bath towel.

There was already one person there, it was Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Seeing the respected Swedish veteran, Bruno raised his hand and greeted him: "Hi, Zlatan."

"Are you done practicing, Bruno?" Ibrahimovic didn't look back, he continued to rub the foam on his hair.

"Yeah." Bruno responded, then walked to the shower head next to Ibrahimovic and turned on the faucet. The warm water sprinkled on his body, and his tired body relaxed after a whole day of training. An indescribable comfort crept into his heart.

After Ibrahimovic rinsed off the foam on his head, he prepared to pack up and leave, while Bruno was applying shampoo on his head.

Ibrahimovic turned off his faucet, turned around and walked out. When he reached the door, he suddenly stopped and said to Bruno as if he had just remembered something: "By the way, Bruno. I forgot to thank you."

Bruno asked in surprise: "Thank me? Thank me for what?"

"If it weren't for your hard work, how could I have played in the Champions League final in the last year of my career?"

Bruno smiled and said, "It has nothing to do with my efforts alone, right? Without you all, what can I accomplish on my own?"

"Of course, I have a lot of people to thank, but the person I want to thank the most is you. Everyone can see your role in this team."

Blue smiled and shrugged.

………………

Ibrahimovic looked at Bruno deeply, waved his hand and said goodbye to Bruno: "This is the last game of my professional career. Whether I can play or not, I will cherish it very much. Thank you, Bruno. See you tomorrow."

Bruno was surprised again. Wasn't there news that Ibrahimovic would play in the MLS after the end of this season? How come he was planning to retire now?

"Goodbye, Zlatan," said Bruno.

Bruno started shampooing his hair again.

While rubbing, he suddenly remembered something. This was the first time that Ibrahimovic participated in the Champions League final in his career!

Although Ibrahimovic has been famous for many years, he has always been a world-class center forward in his prime, winning the Eredivisie, Serie A, La Liga, Ligue 1 and Premier League titles, and can be called a league champion harvester. In the world of football, there is also a saying that "whoever gets Ibrahimovic wins the league."

In recent years, many "best players after Messi and Ronaldo" have appeared in world football, but looking over the past decade, the real best player after Messi and Ronaldo is definitely Ibrahimovic. Only this Swedish giant has a long peak period comparable to that of Messi and Ronaldo.

But such an outstanding world-class player has never played in the Champions League final!

………………

When he was at Ajax, his team had no chance of reaching the Champions League final due to the team's overall strength.

He transferred to Juventus. Although Juventus is the dominant team in Serie A, its performance in the Champions League is mediocre. It was eliminated in the quarterfinals twice, once by Liverpool and once by Arsenal.

After the outbreak of the "phone gate" scandal in Serie A, Ibrahimovic left Juventus for Inter Milan and once again became the dominant force in Serie A. However, the Nerazzurri's performance in the Champions League was even worse than that of Juventus. They were eliminated in the first round of the knockout stage for three consecutive years, being eliminated by Valencia, Liverpool and Manchester United respectively, and were also known as the "sixteenth place in the Champions League".

On the eve of Inter Milan's summit in Europe, Ibrahimovic followed in the footsteps of the "Champions League Champion" and moved to Barcelona. As a result, his old club Inter Milan won the Champions League and became the "Triple Crown".

The next season, Ibrahimovic, who had a falling out with Guardiola, transferred to AC Milan in Serie A and helped the Rossoneri regain their dominance in Serie A. However, Barcelona won the Champions League that season, so there was a saying in European football that "whoever gets Ibrahimovic loses the Champions League."

After two years at AC Milan, Ibrahimovic moved to the new French Ligue 1 rich team Paris Saint-Germain, which put him further away from the Champions League title.

Finally, he came to Manchester United, intending to "spend his old age in peace", but he did not expect that he would participate in the first Champions League final of his career when he was nearly 37 years old, in his last season in European football!

No wonder he wanted to thank himself!

………………

There are always regrets in a person's career. Ibrahimovic has many regrets, including the World Cup, the European Cup and the Champions League, and these regrets were originally impossible to make up for.

It was difficult for him to participate in the European Cup and the World Cup due to the overall weak strength of the Swedish team. The Champions League was also not originally planned. Unexpectedly, Manchester United would make it to the final this season. One of the many regrets was finally made up.

Maybe my goal of winning the championship will resonate with him?

It is only fitting to say goodbye to my career with a Champions League trophy.

It seems like there is one more reason to win the championship!

The next morning, Bruno met Ibrahimovic in the parking lot of the training base.

"Hi Zlatan, good morning."

"Good morning, Bruno."

After saying hello, Bruno asked him: "Zlatan, what do you think of... uh, a Champions League trophy as a commemoration of retirement?"

Ibrahimovic stared at Bruno for a few seconds, then nodded: "I think it's pretty good!"

Bruno grinned. "Ha! It's settled then!"