At Stockholm’s Friends Arena, venue for the Europa League final, a statue of Zlatan Ibrahimovic will soon greet visitors.
It has been sculpted, and a reasonable expectation until two months ago was that the larger-than-life Swede would be constructing monuments to his enduring greatness in person at the stadium on Wednesday.
Alas, for the locals, injury has ruled him out of Manchester United’s meeting with his old club, Ajax.
United, deprived of their leading goalscorer in a season where they have sometimes looked blunt up front, must rely instead on a youthful forward line and, perhaps later in the evening, the experience of Wayne Rooney.
__________________________________
Read more
■ Andy Mitten: Recalling Manchester United's 1991 European Cup Winners' Cup triumph
■ Europa League final: Past and present intertwined as Ajax face Man United in Stockholm
__________________________________
Finishing is an issue. Marcus Rashford’s 11 goals this season represent United’s next best individual tally after Ibrahimovic’s 28, and amount to half as many as Ajax’s leading marksman has scored this term.
That man is Kasper Dolberg, 19 last October, just over three weeks older than Rashford, and in his first season in Ajax’s senior team.
The Dane came to the Dutch club in 2015 via a recommendation from the same scout, Steen Olsen, who a generation ago pointed out the teenaged Ibrahimovic’s unique talents to Ajax.
The rest is history: Ibrahimovic landed in Amsterdam at 19 and at Ajax won the first two of his many league titles across Europe.
Dolberg has some of Ibrahimovic’s assets, as Peter Bosz, the Ajax manager, has pointed out: ability with his back to goal, clinical finishing. He is, as his compatriot and Ajax teammate Lasse Schone says, “very cool.”
Witness the goal he gently glanced past Lyon goalkeeper Anthony Lopes in the semi-final second leg, his fourth strike in the knockout phase of this Europa League and the fifth Ajax goal of a tie which Lyon would drag back to 5-4.
If Ajax are to unpick United, Dolberg’s leading of the line, his intelligent runs are likely to be key.
Ajax have scored freely in the latter stages of this competition but are up against a United with the second meanest defence in the English Premier League.
“How do we open them up?,” asks Schone, who at 30 is by far the senior member of a very young Ajax team.
“If there’s one team that can, maybe we’re the one. With our fast players and our way of pressuring, we can really make it difficult.”
Schone explains: “We have speed up front and we pressure high and fast. And when we go forward, we work very well as a team.
“I’ve seen opponents really not know what’s happening, when we have three players pressing together on one of theirs. That’s our way, and that’s how we’ll play the final.”
Ajax’s Dolberg and Schone follow a strong tradition. Ajax have employed some very great Danes in the past, from Michael Laudrup, and later his brother Brian, to Christian Eriksen, now of Tottenham Hotspur.
If Schone and Dolberg are at distinct poles of the age-scale, they have formed a close bond since Dolberg was promoted from the Ajax youth team to take responsibility at centre-forward.
The voice he often hears loudest from behind him, in central midfield, is Schone’s.
“Playing the way we do, everybody needs to be together, on the same page, staying awake, and staying in position,” says Schone, who is in his fourth season at Ajax.
Giving instructions, he acknowledges, “is the role you have when you are my age. Three days after the final, I will turn 31, which is not that old.
“But this is an incredible team that has been on an incredible ride, because it’s so very young. I say age is just a number.
“We have couple of guys who are 24, or 25 but still very experienced in terms of the number of matches they have played.”
Not so Dolberg, the teenager with the poise of a veteran. It is barely two years since he made his senior debut for Silkeborg in the top flight of Danish football and barely eight months since he first appeared for Ajax’s first team.
His Europa League career stands at nine starts, and he has six goals already.
Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE
Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/TheNationalSport
