28 July 2012 - Zlatan Gets Off To A Quick Start

On 28 July 2012, Zlatan Ibrahimović wasted no time settling in with his new club, Paris Saint-Germain, scoring on his debut.

He completed the move about ten days earlier, joining PSG from Milan for a reported transfer fee of close to €20M. That brought his total career transfer fees to €180M in aggregate, breaking the record previously held by Nicolas Anelka as the world's most expensive footballer.

His first match with PSG was a friendly against DC United as part of the 2012 World Football Challenge. DC hosted the match at RFK Stadium, where it was delayed for 45 minutes because of a thunderstorm. Once it kicked off, however, Ibrahimović lived up to his reputation as one of the world's best strikers by scoring in the third minute--he received the ball just inside DC's eighteen-yard line, beat a defender, and fired a left-footed blast into the far bottom corner.

DC equalized with a Dwayne DeRosario penalty kick in the 33rd minute and the game ended 1-1.

Ibrahimović's goal was the first of 35 he scored that season in all competitions, including 30 in Ligue 1, making him the French top flight's leading scorer. PSG also won the title, their first since 1994.

13 March 2011 - A Good Reason To Get There Early

On 13 March 2011, attendees at Milan's match against Bari witnessed a warm-up routine that seemed unreal--because it was.

Milan, who were sitting at the top of the Serie A table while riding an eleven-game unbeaten streak, hosted Bari, the league's bottom team, at the San Siro. While the crowd filtered in, players from both teams took the pitch to warm up. And that's when things got weird.

Instead of the usual warm-up routine, the players engaged in some eccentric activities. Several of them started dancing, with Gennaro Gattuso pairing up with the referee for a bit of ballet. Clarence Seedorf started boxing and Zlatan Ibrahimović tossed a frisbee around. One player donned a swim cap and pretended to swim, while another lay down on the pitch with a newspaper.

As it turned out, all of the players were look-alikes provided by Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport as a publicity stunt.

The match itself was no less interesting, as Bari managed a 1-1 draw thanks in part to Ibrahimović's ejection for punching Bari's Cartellino Rosso. It wasn't much help for Bari, though, who ended the season at the bottom of the table while Milan won the title.

16 September 2007 - Zlatan's Serie A Century

On 16 September 2007, Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimović made his 100th appearance in Italy's Serie A, spread out over two different teams.

After starting his career with Malmö (1999-2001) and Ajax (2001-2004), Ibrahimović moved to Italy, joining Juventus in the summer of 2004 for a transfer fee of €16 million. He went to make 70 league appearances for them in two seasons, scoring 23 goals as Juventus won the title both seasons.

But in the summer of 2006, the Italian Football Federation stripped Juventus of those two titles and relegated them to Serie B as a result of the club's involvement in the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal. A number of stars, including Ibrahimović, left the club immediately afterward, with Ibrahimović landing at Inter for €24.8 million.

In his first season with Inter, he made 27 league appearances to carry his total to 97 as Inter won the league. He then played in his 100th Serie A match in Inter's third contest of the 2007-08 season as they beat Catania 2-0 at the San Siro. Inter won the league again that season, then added a third in 2009 before Ibrahimović moved to Barcelona. By then, he had extended his Serie A appearances to 158.

After two seasons as Barcelona, he returned to Serie A in 2010 to spend two years with AC Milan, where he made another 61 league appearances before leaving for PSG in the summer of 2012.