Joaquin and Zlatan Ibrahimovic poised for bittersweet end to remarkable careers

To still be playing professional at the grand old age of 41 is an implausible idea for almost every elite attacking player in an era that so prizes speed.

On Wednesday, the flag-bearer for the game’s evergreens finally acknowledged time had become his enemy. Adios, said Joaquin Sanchez, idol of Spain’s Real Betis, the Spaniard who played over 50 times for his country even before he was halfway through an extraordinarily long career.

Joaquin, who turns 42 in July, chose the medium he has mastered almost as well as the pitch to announce his retirement, releasing a carefully curated video to tell his devotees that next month he will be retiring.

By then he should have added to his many statistical landmarks the eight appearances he needs to pass the 622 matches that are the record in La Liga – held by a goalkeeper, Andoni Zubizarreta – to focus on his next adventure.

It will be in Spanish television, where, with his self-deprecating humour, Joaquin has already made himself popular as a presenter of light-entertainment shows. “I like to put a bit of art into everything,” he said in his farewell announcement.

On the same day Joaquin fixed an endpoint to a journey that has gone from fearlessly dribbling past full-backs at the Betis academy, a professional debut in the second division in the last century, to a World Cup, to Valencia, Malaga, Fiorentina and back again to Betis, another 41 year-old was pushing his body towards the next target.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic wants his recovery from a thigh problem he suffered last month to be completed as quickly as possible to play a part in AC Milan’s tumultuous climax to the season.

Like Joaquin at Betis, Ibrahimovic is in his second spell at Milan. Like Betis, fifth in the Spanish table,