‘I’ll always belong to Hong Kong’ says Freddie Fu, the surgeon who saved Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s career
Though he’s lived in Pittsburgh for some 40 years, Hong Kong is still ‘home’ for the orthopaedic specialist who has been in the spotlight since operating on Swedish striker
Fu, 67, chairs the department of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh’s Medical Centre, having moved to the States in the 70s for university. He is something of a local celebrity in Pittsburgh, having worked for years with the city’s American football and ice hockey teams, but nothing prepared him for the worldwide attention he’s received since it was revealed that he would be charged with repairing the Manchester United superstar’s anterior cruciate ligament.
Fu and his colleague Volker Musahl fixed Ibrahimovic’s knee after fears the 35-year-old might never play football again. He has “many years” left at the top, said Fu, who was so impressed with the Swede’s physiology that he wants to open Ibrahimovic up again for research when the striker finally does retire.
After the Post revealed Fu’s Hong Kong connection – his family goes back 120 years in the city – some readers took umbrage at our description of him as a “Hong Kong surgeon”, given his career has been spent in the United States.
“You called me right, I’m very proud to be called a Hongkonger,” insisted Fu by phone from the world-renowned sports medicine facility he set up in the 1980s.