The surgeon who performed surgery on Zlatan Ibrahimovic's knee has said that the Manchester United striker can still play on for "many years."
Ibrahimovic, 35, underwent an operation on damaged knee ligaments in the United States a fortnight ago and is set to miss the rest of the season and the start of the next campaign.
There had been talk that the injury could effectively end the former Sweden international's career given his age, but Dr Freddie Fu Ho-Keung told the South China Morning Post that with his body still in great shape, he has plenty more to offer on the pitch.
"I can't discuss too many details, I don't want to get in trouble with Manchester United," said Fu, chairman of the department of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre.
"But I can tell you he's in superb shape in all things. Healthy morphology, the quality of the bone and muscle, everything is as good as you can possibly see. He's one of the top athletes I've ever touched, he is in superb shape."
Zlatan Ibrahimovic 'one of the top athletes I've ever touched' says Hong Kong surgeon who saved his knee https://t.co/TttvhEeHe0 pic.twitter.com/5nP4i6gAAk
- SCMP News (@SCMP_News) May 11, 2017
Fu added: "He can still play for many years. He's so healthy, so strong. Biologically, bone morphology, everything, is absolutely very healthy."
Ibrahimovic's agent Mino Raiola claimed earlier this week that his client's knee is so strong that Fu wants him to come back after his career is over to conduct research on him.
Fu confirmed that Raiola had been speaking the truth, saying: "Sure, in the future absolutely, when he's retired."
Fu has performed over 20,000 knee operations, including on a number of NFL and NHL stars, but he says he has never experienced the media attention that came with working on Ibrahimovic.
"I think it's a bit different because he's global," he said. "I've taken care of many American players in my lifetime but they're more like American. He's global.
"In fact, I heard about him coming to meet me before I even knew he was coming. I've trained about 800 people worldwide, doctors, and they had already heard about him coming on the Friday. Somehow things leak out to the press and then I was officially contacted about it later.
"I've probably operated at least 20,000 surgeries on knees, 6,000 just on the ACL. I've been operating since 1981 so it's a long, long time, the whole nine yards from open surgery to arthroscopic. But he's definitely a superstar."