Awards and Wins

By: Kirby | January 21st, 2009

Calcio Oscars
Monday night, The Italian Footballer Association (AIC) annual awards ceremony took place. Zlatan walked away with no less than 3 awards. He picked up accolades in the categories of “Best Goal of 2008”, “Best Foreign Player of 2008” and “Best Player of 2008”. These awards are voted for by the Serie A players themselves. I think the winning of these awards is what he needed. This will be a great confidence boost and motivator, so maybe we won’t see any more disinterested performances from Ibra again. When he accepted the awards he had this to say:

“I want to thank all my colleagues who voted for me, my team-mates, José Mourinho and also Roberto Mancini who coached me in the previous years. I’m very happy and I hope to keep winning with Inter now.”

2009 already looks like the year that Ibra is going to top his past. And if that’s true, oh man are we in store for something special. he’s got 4 goals from 4 matches and this brings me to my next topic of discussion.

Inter vs Roma (Coppa Italia)
Inter won this match 2-1 thanks to goals from Adriano and, you guessed it, Ibra. Seeing Zlatan’s name on the score sheet these days seems to be an emerging trend. It’s something I would mind continuing all season long (this would always give me something to write about =P ).

During the match, Zlatan played a pretty good game playing the entire 90 minutes. He looked really up for it and this showed with him putting in a workman-like performance. Ibra was involved in a lot of Inter’s attacking moves (as he usually is when he plays), while on the defense end he put in one or two nice interceptions. His passing was quite nice today, especially in the middle of the park. 1 series of passes between him, Sulley and Deki comes to mind. During that movement they effortlessly stroked the ball around 3 or 4 Roma players while progressing up the pitch. It was quite nice on the eyes if you ask me.

The Entertaining
The passing movement mentioned above and the kick by Mexes on Zlatan late in the second half. Phillip had the gall after the kick to get up in Ibra’s face. The nerve of that guy! A few minutes later, the camera showed Ibra and Mexes talking. You could see Zlatan brushing off the provocation being verbally spewed his way by the French Blonde. I felt as if he was say, “I’m above you and your foul French attitude” (don’t quote me on that. lol).

The Scary
There were 2 scary moments during this match. One was the studs up ankle stamp by Juan and the other was when Ibra and Riise fell, and Riise rolled over Zlatan’s (I think it was) right fibula. Zlatz is a strong boy. He doesn’t stay down much at all. So when he goes down and doesn’t get back up quickly you automatically get the feeling that something is wrong (thank god it wasn’t).

The Goal