Ibrahimovic to rejoin AC Milan in Italy

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is returning to help struggling former Italian club AC Milan, which is reeling from a defeat and languishing way behind city rival Inter Milan.

“I’m coming back to a club I hugely respect and to the city of Milan I love,” Ibrahimovic said.

The 38-year-old agreed to a deal until the end of the season with the option to extend the contract for another season, the club announced Friday.

Ibrahimovic, who had 53 goals for the Galaxy the last two seasons in Major League Soccer, played his last game for them Oct. 25, scoring in a 5-3 playoff loss to LAFC.

Ibrahimovic’s arrival resembles a rescue mission for a seven-time European champion fallen on tough times. Milan is mired in 11th place in Serie A, a distant 21 points behind league leader Inter, and none of its players has more than four league goals this season. Milan hit a low Sunday with its heaviest league defeat in 21 years, 5-0 at Atalanta.

The club needs Ibrahimovic

at his best to have a chance at qualifying for a European place next season.

“I’ll fight together with my teammates to change the course of this season,” he said. “I will do everything to make it happen.”

Ibrahimovic scored 43 goals with Milan from 2010 to 2012. He has been named the best player in Serie A three times and best foreign player in Italy five times.

Twenty-two of the 23 players who played on last summer’s Women’s World Cup champion U.S. team were called up for training camp in preparation for next month’s Olympic qualifying. The only World Cup veteran left off the roster is Alex Morgan, who is pregnant.

Morgan, who is expected to give birth to her first child in April, hopes to be back to play in Tokyo this summer. The U.S. is seeking to become the first team, male or female, to win a World Cup and an Olympic title in consecutive calendar years.

In addition to World Cup stars Megan Rapinoe, Carli Lloyd, Rose Lavelle, Alyssa Naeher and two-time U.S. player of the year Julie Ertz, the 28 players summoned to Tampa, Fla., by new coach Vlatko Andonovski include forward Sophia Smith of Stanford. Smith, 19, is the only nonprofessional and only player without a U.S. national team appearance on the roster.

The Chicago Fire hired former U.S. youth coach Raphael Wicky as their coach.