Zlatan Ibrahimovic unlikely to be fully fit this season

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been in characteristically good form for Paris Saint-Germain, scoring nine goals in 11 appearances, but he's not fully fit and isn't likely to be anytime soon. The club's doctors admit that Ibrahimovic is likely to have some pain in his heel for the rest of the season, and that it will cause him to miss some games.

Ibrahimovic sat out for seven weeks with the injury, but it never healed fully, and apparently PSG have no idea how to make sure it heels fully. He didn't play midweek against Lille, and with a big Champions League against Barcelona coming up, he could rest again this weekend.

PSG doctor Eric Rolland spoke to RMC about the injury.

"He still has pain in his heel. It's pain that can change in intensity. Recently, it hasn't gotten worse, but it will be present until the end of the season. Zlatan will not play every game. He just wanted to look after himself ahead of the trip to Barcelona."

The good news for PSG is that Edinson Cavani and Lucas Moura have both been much better this season as last. Lucas has matched Ibrahimovic in league goals, while Cavani is the club's leading scorer in Ligue 1.

While no one would blame you for believing that Zlatan is immortal, he recently turned 33 and has about 700 professional matches on his legs. There's a good chance that Ibrahimovic is going to pick up more injuries like this and have trouble recovering from them going forward. Having heel pain that doctors can't fix, even after seven weeks off, is the kind of thing that happens to aging athletes who have played 700 pro games.