'Dear Los Angeles, you're welcome': Zlatan Ibrahimovic joins the Galaxy

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has signed for LA Galaxy a day after leaving Manchester United. The 36-year-old striker’s Old Trafford contract was cancelled on Thursday and the Major League Soccer club have, as expected, confirmed his arrival.

Ibrahimovic has made only seven appearances for United this season after suffering a serious knee injury last April. Galaxy are two matches into their campaign.

The front page of Friday’s LA Times sports section had shown Ibrahimovic in a Galaxy jersey, above the headline ‘He’s Hard To Ignore’. The paper also featured a full-page advertisement about the Swede which read: “Dear Los Angeles, You’re welcome.” Ibrahimovic’s signature, above ‘9’ and the Galaxy logo, were at the bottom of the advert.

Responding to a question on whether Los Angeles was “big enough to handle his personality”, the Swede told the LA Times: “If it’s not, I’ll make it bigger.”

“After being in Europe, winning 33 trophies, playing in the best teams in the world, playing with the best players in the world, I wanted to come to the US and play my game there. I wanted people to enjoy my game there and to win. And I chose the Galaxy to do that.”

Ibrahimovic has long been a target for Galaxy and his colleagues there will include the former Chelsea and Arsenal left-back Ashley Cole.

Galaxy announced Ibrahimovic’s signing with a video which showed him with a lion, the animal to which he has likened himself.

He said in an interview with Galaxy’s website that he could play at the World Cup, two years after he retired from international football. “They [Sweden] are calling me every day asking me, how do you feel? What are you thinking? How is the situation? But it is one step at a time. If I feel good, if I am able and can do what I know I can do, I mean the door will always be open. It has nothing to do from the other side, it is from me.

“If I want, I am there [at the World Cup], if I don’t want, I am not there, but one thing at a time. I need to play football, and when I start to do that, then we see what happens.”