“He touched that fibre” – Sergio Romero heaps praise on “God on Earth” Manchester United teammate

Sergio Romero has sung the praises of his former Manchester United teammate who he described as “God on earth”.

Sergio Romero was Manchester United‘s second-choice goalkeeper between 2015-21, finding a certain level of success between the sticks during the 2017 Europa League final, where he started and kept a clean sheet during a 2-0 victory over Ajax.

Romero served as a key part of Jose Mourinho‘s dressing room during his stint at the club and has fondly recalled working with Zlatan Ibrahimović during the Swede’s time at United.

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Ibrahimović was only in Manchester for a season and a half, but still managed to score 30 goals and led the club to two trophies and a community shield, scoring multiple important goals in the process.

The Swede has been somewhat criticised throughout his career for his somewhat ‘God-like’ personality traits, but Romero has described that it was this type of attitude that helped the side so much during the 2016/17 season.

“Behind closed doors, he was the same as what you saw outside,” Romero told Argentine outlet La Nacion, via Sport Witness. “Those things he said in the press, that he was God on earth and things like that, he was the same in the dressing room. He was like that 24 hours a day and in the group, all the time, he made you see that he was there.

“But with us, with the Argentinians, with Marquitos (Rojo), he had something different. Zlatan knew that we Argentinians were one way and Brazilians were another. He knew that if he bit us a little bit, he would lift us up and we wouldn’t fall.

“If he looked for us, he would find that competitive side of us. If he touched us, we would jump like boiled milk and that would empower everyone. He touched that fibre and he knew that we would respond as he demanded. More than once he thanked us, Marquitos and me, because he enjoyed training with us, because if he touched our hearts, we worked harder.

“And that rubbed off on the others, because many times it happened that he would say something and they didn’t respond, on the contrary, many of them would get a puncture and the training would start to fall apart.

“Then he would look for Marquitos, me, the Serb Nemanja Matić, people with character, with personality, so that we would show up and the training would go up again.”