After a criticised season as an advisor at AC Milan - with a fifth-place finish in Serie A and missing out on Champions League football - Zlatan Ibrahimović has crossed the Atlantic to work as a television expert for Fox Sports in the United States during the World Cup.
Just over three weeks have passed since the first broadcast and Ibrahimović has had time to make quite a few appearances.
America, thank Zlatan, he said, among other things, during the first week.
The dynamics are highlighted
He has also been responsible for a number of tributes, including to the USA, when he said that the team can go all the way and that it is time to start dreaming, but also to Sweden, where "Ibra" said that the heavy defeat against the Netherlands did not reflect the match.
But it is above all his role in the Fox studio that has been highlighted, and the collaboration with the two other experts, Thierry Henry and Alexi Lalas.
Social media has been flooded with clips of Ibrahimović and Henry “getting it together” against Lalas. The chemistry during the broadcasts is not there, wrote columnist Aaron Timms in a well-known column in The Guardian.
For TT, Timms expands on his thoughts:
Henry and Zlatan have great respect for each other. Alexi Lalas is outside the studio dynamic. He is simply not on the same level as them. For example, when Henry and Zlatan talk about what it is like to play in the World Cup and swap shirts with Brazil's Ronaldo. They are the "A-team", says Timms and continues:
It could have worked if Lalas was a charming, popular profile. But he is not. He is like Stephen A Smith (NBA expert). Lalas says: “Christian Pulisic, it's time to step up, it's showtime” and bangs his fist on the table. A classic expert on American television.
Didn't do the homework
It is also not certain that the TV audience in the United States knows who Zlatan Ibrahimović is, despite the striker playing in MLS and the Los Angeles Galaxy for two years. Timms says there are two camps, those who follow MLS and are fond of the league and the sport of “soccer”, and those who think MLS is not up to par and follow European football instead.
But for the Swedish football icon, it doesn't seem to matter how the US views him or what category he falls into. The most important thing is that he gets to call himself a lion in prime time.
There are quite a few matches going on during a World Cup and as an expert you have to do your homework when it comes to the smaller teams, like Cape Verde or Curaçao. Zlatan hasn't done that and that's disappointing. He lives up to his name, says columnist Timms.
