Victor Lindelof voluntarily handed over his captain’s armband on Sunday night to Swedish teammate, Albin Ekdal.
Ekdal was playing in his 70th and final international appearance for his national side and according to Manchester United’s official website, the United number two decided to relinquish the captaincy for one night only.
The experienced Swedish centre back has played 246 times for United and 64 times for his national team. Lindelof was also recently the hero when he scored the winning goal in the Red Devils latest 1-0 win over Luton Town before the international break commenced.
The former Benfica man has also had the privilege of captaining the Scandinavians since August 2021, following Andreas Granqvist’s retirement.
Tonight would be different though, as “the Iceman” opted to let his colleague enjoy the responsibility of leading out his side for the night.
Ekdal was given a standing ovation as he left the field of play after 72 minutes at the Friends Arena in Stockholm.
The night itself was a successful one for Sweden even if their campaign has been far from satisfactory. The Swedes beat Estonia 2-0 in their final group game with goals from Viktor Claesson and Emil Forsberg.
Lindelof himself played the full 90 minutes and achieved a 7 rating on sofascore.
The defender had a quiet night, keeping a clean sheet for his side and only needing to intercept the ball once. Lindelof impressively won three out of four aerial duals and also had a strong passing accuracy of 87%. “The Iceman” even completed one successful dribble.
Sadly however, Lindelof and his teammates will not be participating in this summer’s Euros as they finished a distant third in their group with a meagre ten points collected from eight games.
Lindelof himself posted on social media after the game in honour of Ekdal, “end of a great journey. It’s been an honour my friend”.
The Swedish defender has fame already for being a nice guy.
The Peoples Person reported back in 2020 that the then 26-year-old was holidaying in his hometown of Västerås when he spotted a thief snatching a woman’s handbag and making his escape on a bicycle.
The former Benfica defender sprinted after the thief and held him down for five minutes until the police arrived. A spokesperson for Manchester United claimed “Victor feels that he just did what anyone else would have done in that situation”.
Lindelof will be hoping with the international break now over, he can keep up his pre international break form and continue helping his club side propel up the league table.