It’s really happening. It’s finally happening. Manchester United is signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The sport’s most colorful player is joining its most colorful league.
Well, actually, if we were to phrase it properly, by the style guide mandated by our second-favorite (@YahooSoccer) Twitter account @ZlatanFacts, it’s the other way around. Zlatan is signing Man United.
 | @ZIatanFacts | |
Manchester United will move to Zlatan. #ZlatanFacts
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Just as Zlatan didn’t quit playing for Sweden after his nation’s Euro 2016 debacle.
| @ZIatanFacts | |||||||
Zlatan does not retire from International football. International football retires from Zlatan. #ZlatanFacts
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This will surely be the most talked about and scrutinized move of the summer. Even though such transfers as Henrikh Mkhitaryan potentially going to Manchester United, or Samuel Umtiti signing with Barcelona, or Paul Pogba leaving Juventus for wherever he’s headed – if anywhere – will likely have a much bigger impact on the balance of power in the game, Zlatan just has a way about him.
Nearing his 35th birthday, the big Swedish striker is coming off his most prolific season ever, scoring 38 league goals in just 31 games to lead his steamrolling Paris Saint-Germain to his fourth league title in four seasons there. That’s eight more goals than he had ever scored in a single campaign. Indeed, his four-year league haul of 113 goals with PSG is easily the most productive stretch of his career.
The Premier League will be more demanding than Ligue 1 though. And with United, he won’t get nearly as many scoring chances. Given how static Zlatan has become, it’s quite possible that his enormous $300,000-per-week contract, which will make him one of the highest-paid players in England, will become an albatross on a team that needs rebuilding more than reloading.
But all of that seems to miss the point and essence of Zlatan. He’s a good striker – and was not so long ago a great striker. He’ll score goals. And we’ll finally get to see him in the most visible sports league in the world. United will reunite him with new manager Jose Mourinho, who has a personality that’s almost as big – the two get on famously since their days together at Inter Milan nonetheless, or perhaps because of this.
What Zlatan ensures above goals, though, is entertainment. His personality is so big – the scowling, the swaggering, the impossible goals, the one-liners – that he becomes his own show within the game he plays. For a leading club that has lost a great deal of its glamor, landing Zlatan, even at his near-geriatric age, is an optical coup, if not necessarily a footballing one.
After all, just look at the number of favorites and re-tweets on his own announcement.
 | @Ibra_official | |
Time to let the world know. My next destination is @ManUtd pic.twitter.com/DAK7iYlrCq
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Because, of course, it was Zlatan who announced where he was going, rather than the club saying who it was bringing in.
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