Zlatan Ibrahimovic will receive an award Saturday at the StubHub Center. Nothing unique about that. The Galaxy forward has almost as many plaques and trophies as he has goals, and he’s scored 501 of those.
The son of immigrant parents from the Balkans, the Swedish-born Ibrahimovic has talked frequently about how he felt marginalized growing up in a housing project. He recently accused the Swedish media of “undercover racism” against him because he doesn’t have blond hair, blue eyes and a Swedish surname.
“This is me representing the new Sweden,” he said after training Thursday. “I have a different background [because of] my parents, but I’m Swedish.