Zlatan Ibrahimovic has never struggled for confidence in front of a camera. Turns out, confidence isn't enough — and The Athletic has said so in print.
The AC Milan senior advisor is part of Fox Sports' punditry lineup for the 2026 World Cup, and the reviews are not kind. The Athletic published a piece calling the dynamic between Ibrahimovic and former USMNT defender Alexi Lalas 'awkward', concluding that the show would be flat-out better with "less Zlatan, less Lalas." The headline criticism: Ibrahimovic reportedly had never heard of Jesse Marsch — Canada's American head coach — while sitting on a panel analysing a Canada match in front of a US audience.
That's not a minor gap. That's a basic homework failure.
Milan fans aren't laughing
The punditry criticism would sting less if Ibrahimovic's presence at Fox wasn't already a sore point back at San Siro. Milan announced his World Cup role during a spell when the club had no head coach, no sporting director, no technical director, and no CEO — with the summer transfer window less than a fortnight from opening. Ruben Amorim was only appointed on Tuesday, ending the coaching void, but the structural gaps remain.
Ibrahimovic isn't technically a Milan employee — he serves as a senior advisor to RedBird, the investment firm that owns the club — but his influence over footballing decisions has always been murky enough to generate real expectations. Flying to the States to do TV while the club drifts isn't a great look, whatever his contract says.
The Athletic's prescription is specific: use Zlatan for what he actually knows — goalscoring, on-pitch intelligence, the instincts of a top striker — and rein in the larger-than-life shtick that works on Instagram but falls flat on live television. The comparison to Thierry Henry, described as "considerably more palatable", is a quiet indictment. Henry does the work. He knows the players. The camera picks that up.
As for Lalas, The Athletic apparently has even less use for him than for Zlatan — which, given the column inches devoted to the Swede's shortcomings, says something.
