Zlatan Ibrahimovic is the most popular player in Major League Soccer. He already knew that, and now there's statistical backing as MLS announce that he tops the list of highest-selling player jerseys on their store in his debut season.
In an electrifying inaugural season Stateside Zlatan's confidence and tongue-in-cheek arrogance has won over the American audience and that's shot him to the top of the shirt sales table. That, and his 22 goals and 10 assists in 26 games. The results are taken from sales exclusively on the MLSstore.com as Zlatan pips LAFC frontman Carlos Vela to the post.
Eighteen of the top 25 names are Designated Players with Atlanta United's prolific marksman Josef Martinez sitting in third position. It comes as no surprise that Atlanta United lead all MLS teams with five jerseys in the top 25 – they have the highest average attendance with over 55,000 supporters packing into the Mercedes-Benz Stadium each home game.
Thirteen different countries are represented among the top 25 sellers: Sweden (Ibrahimovic), Mexico (Vela, Giovani dos Santos), Venezuela (Martinez), England (Rooney, Wright-Phillips, Dwyer), Paraguay (Almiron), Germany (Schweinsteiger), Spain (Villa), Italy (Giovinco), United States (Dempsey, Altidore, Arriola, Zusi, Cristian Roldan, Nagbe), Argentina (Barco, Valeri, Villalba, Luciano Acosta), Uruguay (Rossi), Canada (Alphonso Davies), Colombia (Quintero, Diego Chara).
The full list is as follows:
- Zlatan Ibrahimovic (LA Galaxy)
- Carlos Vela (LAFC)
- Josef Martinez (Atlanta United)
- Wayne Rooney (D.C. United)
- Miguel Almiron (Atlanta United)
- Bastian Schweinsteiger (Chicago Fire)
- David Villa (NYCFC)
- Sebastian Giovinco (Toronto FC)
- Clint Dempsey (Seattle Sounders)
- Ezequiel Barco (Atlanta United)
- Diego Valeri (Portland Timbers)
- Diego Rossi (LAFC)
- Bradley Wright-Phillips (New York Red Bulls)
- Giovani dos Santos (LA Galaxy)
- Darlington Nagbe (Atlanta United)
- Jozy Altidore (Toronto FC)
- Alphonso Davies (Vancouver Whitecaps)
- Hector Villalba (Atlanta United)
- Dom Dwyer (Orlando City)
- Luciano Acosta (D.C. United)
- Graham Zusi (Sporting KC)
- Cristian Roldan (Seattle Sounders)
- Darwin Quintero (Minnesota United)
- Paul Arriola (D.C. United)
- Diego Chara (Portland Timbers)
Los Angeles loves Zlatan. America loves Zlatan. Zlatan loves Zlatan.