The MLS All-Star Game will be without the presence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Following Sunday’s win over Orlando City, the LA Galaxy announced that Ibrahimović will miss Wednesday’s All-Star Game against Juventus at Mercedes Benz Stadium. Ibrahimvoic scored three goals in Sunday’s match, guiding the Galaxy to a 4-3 win.
The Galaxy cited the team’s recent schedule that featured three games in just eight days. Due to the travel involved, Ibrahimovic will remain in Los Angeles and will miss the Galaxy’s next MLS match on Saturday against the Colorado Rapids due to MLS policy.
“I am disappointed to miss the 2018 All-Star game against Juventus, one of my former clubs,” said Ibrahimović. “I want to thank the fans for voting me to the team. My main focus is to score goals and help the LA Galaxy to the playoffs.”
He obviously doesn’t want to embarrass Juve. I get the whole if–there’s-no-penalty-to-not-showing-for-the-all-star-game-then-no-one-will-show rule, but maybe there should be a new rule giving each team two all star age exceptions. One for those over 29 yrs would be able to be excepted just for a half game penalty, meaning they would have to miss half of the team’s game following the all star. The other exception would disallow an over 29 yrs old player from playing more then 25 minutes in the all star game.
One thing you have to admire about Ibra is that his focus is on his team winning titles. That’s his main concern. You need to remember he is coming back from a serious knee injury and his coach kept him out of a prior league match that involved long travel and artificial turf. It makes sense for him and his team that he not risk injury playing in a meaningless exhibition, which is what the All Star game is. The All star game is fun for fans and has also been kind of a way to measure MLS progress by playing some of the best club teams in the world. I agree with Panda that maybe its time has come and gone. MLS has progressed to the point now that it doesn’t need this game and it’s a distraction from the league competition.
+1 Agreed with all of the above. Not to mention it’s probably a little embarrassing for some of the European veterans like Ibra and Villa (who also pulled out) to be playing in a gimmick side against some of their old peers. Let the All-Star game die — heck most other American sports leagues would probably love to do this but can’t….
Struck down with Oldfartitis in his prime. You hate to see it.
Maybe it’s finally time to do away with the silliness that is the All Star Game.
It’s been time for the last 10 years. MLS doesn’t need to do *everything* that the other American leagues do to grow. In fact, they would stand out more if they broke away more often…