Juventus coach Antonio Conte:

"Ibrahimovic is like Gulliver, the giant who comes to the land of Lilliput, and the small people.

Just seeing him is scary. It's amazing how he makes the difference for his team.

Thanks to him Milan are clear favorites to win the league."

Nice strategy Conte, trying to put pressure on our players. Though your team is leading by a meager point, so the pressure is on them, not us.

Yup, definitely a tactical statement. Conte seems like a smart cookie!

A smart but bitter cookie.

Agent opens door to sensational Real Madrid move for AC Milan's Ibrahimovic



source: triballfootball


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IMO, he's lying, trying to get better salary for Ibrahimovic.

AC Milan’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been given a 3-match ban for slapping Napoli defender Salvatore Aronica.

ACMilan will contest the decison of banning Zlatan Ibrahimovic for three match days.

This guy Riola is a smarter (but fatter) cookie. Probably heartless too. Anyway, if Ibra has to go, I'd prefer it to be Real Madrid. City is much more secure, but RM will be further strengthened if he goes there.

That means he’ll miss the big Juve game. Hope after the appeal they'll change it to two games.

3 matches sounds alot to me.

Let's hope Maxi López will turn out good for us.

Don't think it will be reduced and it shouldn't, unfortunately. The right thing to do would to give Aronica a 3 game ban also.

You know the situation is bad when you have to count on Maxi Lopez

They could at least lower it one match. Aronica has not received anything yet.

It is debated alot now what referees are doing in Serie A.

Seedorf goal against Fiorentina, penalty against Lazio and now this.

http://www.milannews.it/?action=read&idnotizia=72747

Ibra: "I f'd up".

http://www.milannews.it/?action=read&idnotizia=72644

“I did a stupid thing. It happens, it happens. I have to learn when I am wrong. I don’t need the television pictures to know what I did. I messed up.

“I have confidence in the team. They will do well without me.”

I still like the guy

No one is really condemning him. People are mostly disappointed. I understand the need to protect Nocerino, but still he should have thought things through before doing that, because with him on the pitch we could have won that Napoli game as well as had good chances for the upcoming games.

Let's just hope the appeal lowers it to 2. Especially if Aronica does not get anything, it's ridiculous that they supposedly reviewed the video evidence to come to the 3 match ban conclusion yet conveniently did not see Aronica grabbing Nocerino by the neck and slapping him in the face

Great Interview of Zlatan from goal.com. He seems like such a nice bloke. Whatever happened to that chip on his shoulder!

Fantastic review!




Just loved this one.

Nice interview indeed.

Thanks for posting.

Ibrahimovic scored every 181 minutes last year in Serie A, this year its 109 minutes (same as Di Natale).

Reporter wants to sue Zlatan Ibrahimovic for ‘hitting’ her (arm) with his car

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/soccer-dirty...dGVzdAM-;_ylv=3

When will they give the guy a break...

This could barely be considered a 'hit'...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRX_lFph_Ks

It's a joke, and a disgrace from the Italian press.

I find myself incredibly tempted to troll this situation

OFFICIAL: Zlatan's ban wont be reduced.

****** *******.

Shameful decision.

I think it's the correct decision. The only injustice is that Aronica didn't also get a ban.

Juve's whining - 2
Milan's chances to win the title -0

to actually revise it and to not punish aronica is pure lunacy...

Three weeks for a simple pat? No, no, no...

Players know the rules, you can't raise your hands to another player. A 3 game ban is correct for me and I stand by my comment that the only wrong decision was to not punish Aronica. It was stupidity from Ibra, stupidity that deserves this ban.

I think three games are too much.

Me too, he deserved two games, not three. That tender slap (plus he was defending his teammate) is not equal to what Dias did to MVB.

He got a reduction last season, and his punch at Rossi of Bari was much worse.

Maybe they were afraid of more Juve bitching...

Many sides to this story.

On the one hand he was protecting his team mate which is commendable and the fact that Aronica gets away free is disgusting.

On the other hand how much are we to tolerate. The guy fights with his own team mates and opponents. He has gotten so many red cards in his career. He probably has more reds than Totti. Probably more than any other forward I've ever seen. I can't remember the last time Milan had such a bad tempered player....Guillit perhaps?

Then there is the third angle that the incident in itself when scrutinized is pretty innocuous so it wasn't an actual punch...more of a slap...but the thing is these incidents add up and saying that he was punished less for worse isn't even an argument. Anyone who doesn't see the world through our red and black glasses would actually use as grounds to EXTEND this ban.

Think about all the moronic crap he's done while here, from the hitting th reporter with his car (ridiculous accusation I agree but look at the speed he flies by in the crowded road), the Storari blow, the Aronica slap (would have been a punch if he was in proper range), the Onyewu fight, the Strasser kick.....and then ask yourself which Milan player in recent past ever behaved this way. Most of these incidents my themselves are easily explained. even understandable but the crap he does just adds up

This.

That's what I've been telling all along. It was Conte's strategy.

+1. I wanted to say the exact same thing. FIGC are a bunch of cowards.

We should act like a couple of b!tches too to the media like Juve did. It's obviously working out great for them so far

It's disgusting to see

i just hope that this is a blessing in disguise like inter last year....

Funny enough, last year we were to face Inter in the "scudetto match" without Ibra, now we have to face Juve in the other "scudetto match" without him. 3-0, anyone?

I'd be thrilled, yet, I don't have the same feel about this one.

If Pato scores two, then why not. Frankly Juventus has quality (in defense more so) unlike Arsenal, and it will take something special to carve through them. Hard work may just not be enough this time, unless of course, they put in a bad performance themselves. If they remain solid, we may need a miraculous goal or two.

Under what grounds should it be reduced?

It was unnecessary, he was unprovoked and it was nothing to do with him. He's lucky that (I assume) the Italian FA don't work the same way as the English FA, because he'd be serving a 4 game ban now for a stupid appeal.

It wasn't a violent gesture. It was rude, but not violent. Three weeks is an exaggerated ban.

Leandro Cantamessa (Milan's lawyer): "I'm furious. Those who judged Ibra didn't take into consideration how they've judged similar cases earlier. The linesman saw that the slap didn't hurt Aronica, so it wasn't a violent act, it was just unsporting and yet they still judge it to be violent."

25 goals in 28 games + 9 assits.

Great season from Ibra.

I still can't say if it's better than last though. Some of his 3 pointers last season were invaluable for our title win. This season he's just been better all round. Where last season Pato and Robinho compensated for his huge dip in form in the second part of the season, this season he's been a one man wrecking ball.

Statistically, it's already better than last season. There's still some way to go, I'm confident by the end of season he would at least score 30 goals if not more.

"If you play in a big club like Milan something like this cannot happen. You can lose in many ways, but the way we did is not acceptable. We must be stronger and more stable. We tried calming each-other down, but it wasn't a simple situation. We made childish mistakes, I think we had too much in our heads the first leg advantage, we were too cautious and didn't try to play the game our way.

Arsenal took the lead early, then scored another two, all in the first half. In the second half, they had many opportunities to score the fourth and the fifth, but luckily they failed. Every time Arsenal attacked I thought to myself 'What if they score the fourth...'. It was a relief in the end. We must learn from our errors last night.

I felt out of position when we played with three strikers".

Link

Sorry Ibra, but you must have been too panicked to realize that Arsenal had only one scoring opportunity in the second half, and that we managed to control the game for most parts, wasting a few goals as well.