Zlatan Ibrahimović's absence from a momentous Swedish party would usually be a matter of national concern.
Not so much right now.
Sweden's dependence on its historic scorer — possibly the country's greatest footballer of all time — has diminished in the face of the emergence of a trio of attackers half their age.
Anthony Elanga, a 19-year-old striker, was uncovered this season in Manchester United's first team.
Dejan Kulusevski, 21, has also been a revelation with Tottenham, another English Premier League club, which he reached in the January transfer window.
There is also Alexander Isak, 22 years old. The Real Sociedad striker shone at the European Championships last year.
Suddenly, the fact that Sweden faces the World Cup repechage on Thursday against the Czech Republic without the genius of the 40-year-old striker has ceased to seem like a complex task.
Ibrahimović will meet a suspension date for the Stockholm match and, if Sweden wins, he may not be fit to start on Tuesday against Poland, when his ticket to the tournament is played in Qatar. The Milan star continues to recover from an injury to the Achilles tendon.
For Janne Anderson, the national coach, Ibrahimović will still play an important role next week.
“You can contribute with your experience,” Anderson said. “I see him as a semi-leader who can boost, guide and give advice to younger players. So he has an important role even if he doesn't play on Thursday.”
“I can say that I fully trust him with that role,” he added.
Since Henrik Larsson played at the front with Ibrahimović in the early 2000s, Sweden has not had other variants with guarantees in his attack. Having an icon like Ibrahimović as a mentor for the country's young strikers improves the situation.
Especially since players like Kulusevski, Elanga and Isak can be identified with Ibrahimović and his career with the national team. Like Ibrahimović, who was born in Sweden to immigrant parents from the former Yugoslavia, Kulusevski was born in Sweden to parents of Macedonian origin.
Elanga was born in Malmö — like Ibrahimović — and his father played for the Cameroon national team. Isak's parents are from Eritrea and moved to Stockholm in the 1980s due to the civil war in East Africa.
“Zlatan opened the door to people like us in Sweden that nobody imagined,” Kulusevski acknowledged. “It really helped all the children... children who were marginalized and showed them that anything is possible. When he started saying my name as a player, I felt like a kid at Christmas.”
“I also admire,” he added, “that he is 40 years old and still doing his thing, scoring. It's an honor to play with him.”
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