YouTube Tuesday: Ibra-cadabra!

Roughly six hours from now, my father and I will hit the Rose Bowl to see two of the half dozen best soccer teams in the world take the pitch in the grandiosely named World Football Classic. Its something I've looked forward to for a while now, and making matters convenient, it pits my least favorite club in the entire world, Chelsea, against my favorite club in the entire world, Inter Milan.

There are many reasons I love Inter, but one of the most aesthetically pleasing is a Swede. Now before images of scantily clad Swedish women begin bounding through your head, let me temper your enthusiasm: I'm talking about a male Swede. A male, 6'4'' Swede with a very crooked nose who with a tongue twisting name of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, or Ibra to those in the know.



Less excited? Well, I can't blame you. The reason I use the term "aesthetically pleasing" to describe him isn't because he's particularly attractive, but because "Ibra-cadabra" performs the kind of magic with a soccer ball that's so out-of-this world, it bring you back to the days when you believed in the Tooth Fairy and booked round-trip tickets to Narnia.

Allow me to clarify. 6'4'' is very, very tall, for a soccer player and the majority of players that size tend to lumber across the pitch, using their size to outmuscle their opponents. Ibrahimovic, however, is an anomaly; not only can he use his strength with the best of them, but he also dribbles with a deft touch normally possessed by men a foot shorter than him.

To draw a familiar parallel, that's like a crossing Tim Duncan's size with Allen Iverson's handles.

Now, I've seen plenty of Inter games on TV and am well familiar with Zlatan's heroics. But seeing him live is something that I may never again have the opportunity to witness; after all, it's not exactly convenient to travel halfway across the world for 90 minutes of soccer.

So you can imagine my abject horror - and fury - when Inter agreed to sell him to Barcelona last Friday.

While the clubs are still working out the final details, the odds are very long that Ibra steps onto the field tonight in a meaningless game, for an outfit he is shortly about to vacate. In all likelihood, he played his last match in Inter's black-and-blue striped shirt on Sunday evening.

That's right, I missed out on possibly my only chance to see my favorite soccer player by two f*cking days.

Sports Gods: 1 Mike: 0

I'm the stubborn type, though, and one way or another I'm going to see some Ibrahimovic today. So are you, because I'm dedicating YouTube Tuesday to Ibra-cadabra and his magic.

Watch and be amazed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBvrb_4fwdM