Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Sweden

Stumbled upon an interesting debate (in which I am participating) about FC Internazionale’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s performances in the Big Matches, over at The Offside: What Is Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s Problem?. Providing evidence in the form of Ibrahimovic’s mediocre goal record in the Champions League knockout rounds and at the FIFA World Cup, Daryl is proposing that Ibrahimovic in fact may be a “big game bottler”.

I’ve heard this reasoning before, especially concerning his performances for the Swedish national team, and I think that it is based upon a quite weak argumentation. His World Cup record is obviously not the best, but it should be remembered that he was only a little-used substitute in Japan 2002, and that he was affected by his thigh problems in Germany 2006.

At the European Championship, as well as in important qualification matches, he has often delivered. On seven matches in Portugal 2004 and Austria/Switzerland 2008, he has scored four goals, out of which three were of crucial importance.

Also, as Brian notes in the debate, the theory implies that there are no Big Matches in the Serie A and Coppa Italia, where he has continously delivered in important clashes with Milan, Juventus and Roma.

What about the Champions League then? Well, the facts here might look harder to dismiss. But from my perspective, I wouldn’t say that Ibrahimovic in any way was mediocre or underperforming in the recent ties against Manchester United. The problem here is more related to his team - his mates in Inter’s offensive line-up is unfortunately not good enough to provide a substantial chance of prospering against teams like Man U (or Liverpool in last year’s Champions League). Also, it could be argued that the margins were simply not on Ibra’s side in the matches against Manchester United - his finishes were flawless, and could just as well have provided him and Inter two or three goals.