No. Ibra had a dangerous tackle on Onyewu, who was understandably pissed because he was coming off a knee injury.
Didn't Ibra start this one? And your point is a good one. This isn't a democracy. Their pay scale and value disparity in the team hierarchy makes it difficult for someone at Gooch's level to retaliate against someone at Ibra's, even when provoked. (Which makes it all the more impressive to me that Gooch's integrity carried the day over pragmatism and pacifism.) But more importantly, why didn't the management at AC Milan do a better job of reigning in Ibra before this? The following video was a precursor to the Gooch incident. Seems like management didn't have the balls to set ground rules with Ibra at that time and enforce them. Talented striker or no, you can't run a team that way. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpUjUMNpF-c"]Zlatan Ibrahimovic kicks a teammate on milans training! (Rodney Strasser) - YouTube[/ame]
And Ronaldinho for that matter. Did anyone else see him laughing and hugging Ibrahimovic after he did that?
I almost never condone fighting. But as far as I can tell Ibrahmovic is a douche and a provocateur, and he delights in "playful" bullying that he knows he can get away with because he's bigger and better-paid than almost all soccer players. Gooch is a class act who has avoiding retaliating on any number of cheap fouls over his career. So if he went after Ibrahimovic for a dangerous tackle during practice, I feel pretty sure Ibrahimovic had it coming. In this case, I'm not going to wring my hands in dismay at the idea of answering unwarranted violence with warranted violence.
Some funny and interesting gems from his book Gooch ...It was brutal and we two guys over 200 pounds rolled around kneeing and punching, and of course, the whole team came and tried to pull us away from each other ... Afterwards Allegri called for us. We shook hands and apologized. But Oguchi was cold as a fish. Mido ...Later after spending the whole game on the bench, he came into the locker room and called us all lousy c**ts. He was screaming and no nice words exactly, and I answered by telling him that if anyone was a c**t it would be him, and he took a pair of scissors from a bench and throw it towards me, completely crazy, honestly. It swished past my head, right into the wall creating a crack and obviously, I stood up and gave him a slap, a punch. But after ten minutes we walked out, arm in arm. [the equipment manager kept the scissors as memorabilia] Fredrik Ljungberg We were a nice gang in that team. We were good guys, and one prima donna. The prima donna was doing his silly thing. "In Arsenal, you know, we do it like this. This is the way you should do it. Because in Arsenal they know, and I play there" That style ... I was rotting away hearing that. "My back hurts so much" he said. Ouch. "I can't ride in the regular bus. I need my own. I must have this and that." I mean, who the f**k is he to come and be upper-class on us? Rafael van der Vaart Maybe he would miss a game or two, but in the papers he said that I did it on purpose. I jumped when I read that. What kind of s**t is that? ... Why the hell did he smear a teammate like that? It was sick ... The environment turned more and more sour. The whole team split in two camps. The Dutch in Rafael's camp, and the foreigners in mine. In the end Koeman called for a meeting, and by then it had driven me crazy. WTF, accuse someone for something like that? [he later at Inter asked the management to sign VDV] Louis van Gaal van Gaal was a self-important guy. He was a bit like Co Adriaanse. He wanted to be a dictator without any kind of humor ... van Gaal liked to talk about systems. He's was one of them in the club who talked to the players as numbers. It was a lot of "five moves here and six there" and I was happy when I didn't have to deal with him anymore.
Which is exactly what I meant when I said... Got to read the entire post before deciding on disagreeing.
From a recent interview with Michael Bradley in La Gazzetta dello Sport: Do you know you’re the third American to play in Italy? "Yes. I remember Lalas well when he was on the national team. And Onyewu’s a friend." Well then he must have told you something about his fight with Ibrahimovic... "When Ibra’s autobiography came out we were in camp with the national team and I tried to prod him: ‘Is it true what Zlatan said?’ But he’s not one to go around telling everyone his business." https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=25238303&postcount=1025
As part of Ibrahimovic's 40th birthday today La Gazzetta dello Sport has published an article on some of the biggest enemies from his career. So of course, there was a segment dedicated to Gooch: "A heavyweight clash." That's how the brawl between Ibra and Onyewu was described. More than ten years have passed but many details still remain unknown to this day. A few were revealed by Gattuso, who jumped into the fray to separate them. "It all stemmed from a nasty foul, then words were exchanged, followed by the punches. They spent 25 minutes wailing on each other before anyone would intervene." Just Rino. "I was getting hit from all sides." After it ended Ibra immediately called Galliani to apologize. "It's only right if you want to fine me or cut part of my salary," he said. Flavio Roma stated that it took the entire team to separate them, while Massimo Ambrosini spoke of "one of the scariest moments of my entire life." Two giants weighing 100 kilos each, an American and a Swede, throwing hooks and uppercuts in the middle of the Milanello training ground. Onyewu only played one Champions League game for AC Milan, then moved around Europe without ever finding consistency. He retired in 2017. https://www.gazzetta.it/Calcio/Seri...ukaku-chiellini-guardiola-4201593365863.shtml
25 minutes of trading punches? I guess when you see 2 giants fighting and one of them is your meal ticket to any trophies, even a few minutes would seem an eternity.
Notice that nobody ever says who won the fight? If Zlatan would have won, someone would have said so. Gooch must have kicked his ass.
Luckily for Zlatan that was post surgery, barely recovered Gooch. Otherwise we would haven't seen all those beatiful carate kick goals any more. Post fight Ibra was using "brick house" expression describing Gooch.