Euro 2020: Sweden striker Isak is injured Zlatan’s heir apparent
With a sizzling 17 goals for Real Sociedad this season, Sweden’s Alexander Isak comes into Euro 2020 as heir apparent to Zlatan Ibrahimovic and will be expected to provide the attacking threat to get them out of group E now Ibra is out with a knee injury.
The Swedes face Spain, Slovakia and Poland with the 21-year-old likely to start against the Spaniards, who know him well from his LaLiga exploits.
“At his age, he’s still young and he’s good on the ball, he’s explosive over the first five metres, the first five steps, he can play as a lone striker or one of two forwards,” Swedish-Eritrean striker Henok Goitom, who scored 10 goals in the 2008-09 LaLiga season for Real Valladolid, told Reuters.
Now in his second stint at Stockholm side AIK, Goitom recalls when Isak came up through the club’s junior ranks, first training with the senior team as a callow teenager.
“It was unusual. There was a possession drill where I wanted the ball from him, and as a 15-year-old it’s easy to just pass it to an older player, but Alex chose a different pass,” he said.
“I was surprised but when I looked behind me and assessed the situation again, I could see he made the right decision,” Goitom recalled.
“To do that, in one of your first training sessions as a 15-year-old, it means you know what you have around you. That was the first sign that this could be a good player.”
Goitom left AIK for Getafe and Isak filled his shoes in the 2016 season, scoring 13 goals in 29 games for the club before joining Borussia Dortmund for a reported nine million euros ($10.97 million) – a record transfer for an Allsvenskan player.
The Sweden international with the most single-season La Liga goals is no longer Zlatan Ibrahimovic 🇸🇪
It's 21-year-old Alexander Isak, who scored 17 times this campaign for Real Sociedad 🔥
Learned from the best 👊 pic.twitter.com/23gMLHXKBv
— Goal (@goal) May 27, 2021
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A season on loan at Dutch side Willem II was followed by a move to Real Sociedad where he has thrived.
Isak, whose father taught Goitom the Eritrean language of Tigrinya while at school, scored three times in the Euro 2020 qualifiers but it is his intelligence and adaptability that will see him shoulder the attacking burden for Janne Andersson’s side.
“I think he’s best with two forwards because he can be a little more free,” said Goitom who, like all Sweden fans, will be keen to see what Isak can do as Zlatan’s successor.