Standup9ja: Mourinho: Ibrahimovic’s Career Not Over

Standup9ja: Mourinho: Ibrahimovic’s Career Not Over

Mourinho is very confident Zlatan Ibrahimovic will keep fighting to keep his career alive, but wouldn’t shed more light on his United future.

The veteran striker’s debut season in the EPL hit a lurch when he ruptured his ACL, and is set for a lengthy time out on the sidelines.

Ibrahimovic is not giving up on playing , but Mourinho doesn’t know if he’ll continue at United.

“The future is a big surgery and a long period of recovering. But the future is also in the hands of a very strong guy, mentally very strong, who wrote immediately on social media that he will stop [playing] when he wants, not when people think,” Mourinho said at a news conference Wednesday.

“It looks for me that he is not going to give up and he is going to fight. I am really pleased with that because this is the Zlatan I know. He fought all his life and that is what I told him — ‘you have fought all your life since you were born.’ I do not see a reason not to fight.

“We think he is in fabulous hands and [he needs to] recover from the injury and prepare himself mentally for the next step. I think the next step will always be something that he really wants, which is something I was saying before the injury in the period of doubt about his future; I have always said that.

“He is much more important than myself and what I want — it is what he wants. I always want the players to be happy and to choose their future, and this is what I think is going to happen.

“Now, before such an important surgery, I think it is a waste of time to speak about what is next.”