3. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Inter 2009/2010) – €69.5 million
The Swedish giant will be remembered as one of the best players of his generation, and his time in Italy is definitely a testament to that statement. After 26 goals in 92 games in Turin, the fallout from the Calciopoli scandal led to Mino Raiola threatening legal action against the club if Ibrahimovic was held to his contract.
So they relented and he moved on to Inter Milan for €24.8 million, which is when he began to show how deadly he could really be on a consistent basis. His debut goal was just the first of 15 as he led Inter to a record Scudetto victory (97 points) as their number one goalscorer.
His second season went in very much the same fashion as he struck 22 goals in all competitions to win another league title, as well as picking up the Serie A Player of the Year and Foreign Player of the Year awards. In his final season alongside Jose Mourinho, he scored 29 goals and defend his 3 trophies from the previous season, adding the Goal of the Year award for a skillful strike against Bologna.
Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona then agreed a huge switch that involved money (€46 million), a player sale (Samuel Eto’o for €20 million) and a loan (Alexander Hleb for €10 million). The latter collapsed but still making Ibrahimovic worth a gigantic amount of money and one of Barcelona’s finest strikers ever.
In his first game he assisted Lionel Messi, but he eventually made his own record as the first player to score in his first five La Liga matches. His 2009/2010 season went strangely as he scored 21 goals, won La Liga, the FIFA Club World Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and two Supercopa de Espana trophies but fell out completely with manager Pep Guardiola.
Hence, he only stayed at Barcelona one season and moved on to the last team he faced in blaugrana colours AC Milan. He’d left Italy to win the Champions League and ironically, Mourinho’s Inter beat Barcelona on the way to the treble using the man they’d swapped for Ibrahimovic.
