Michael Jordan’s fierce will to win in Netflix’s ‘The Last Dance’ documentary series was reminiscent of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, according to Jesse Lingard.
Ibrahimovic spent a year and a half at Manchester United before leaving for the U.S. with LA Galaxy, winning the Carabao Cup, Europa League and Community Shield during his time at Old Trafford.
Like many others, Lingard has binged his way through the Jordan documentary while stuck at home during lockdown.
“I think it’s very inspiring and there’s a lot of different personalities in the team like [Dennis] Rodman, [Scottie] Pippen, Michael Jordan but they all come together on a day and to get the job done,” Lingard told BeIN Sports.
“It was really inspiring to see the work ethic from Jordan to make his teammates become the best and it paid off in the end. It was a really inspiring story.”
Asked if he knew any similar characters in football, the England international replied: “I have to say Zlatan. As soon as he came to Man Utd you could feel that aura around him. He had that winning mentality and that drove us, motivated us to win many trophies.
“Not many people have had that effect. He had that raw winning mentality; he’d played at big clubs before and had that winning mentality. He came to Man Utd and said he wanted to win trophies.
"At that time, I was a young player, Marcus Rashford was young. As soon as we won that first trophy it made us hungry for more, so I’d say he brought that winning factor and winning mentality to the team.”
Manchester United have, like the rest of the Premier League, been back in training this week as they prepare for the possible resumption of the league season.
“I couldn't wait to get back to football but since being back it's been great,” Lingard said. “At the moment we're currently training in groups with specific time slots and it's been good just to get my boots on and back on the grass with the balls and around my teammates and coaches.
“If it wasn’t a safe environment then we wouldn’t be training, but we follow the right protocols, we get tested every two days and we keep our distance when group training as well.
“At the moment we're taking everything so steady and we're waiting on the government to give the green light for the next step but none of the players would be there if we didn’t feel it was safe.”