Maldini praise for Zlatan

Paolo Maldini admits Zlatan Ibrahimovic reminds him of Marco van Basten.

Current Holland national team coach van Basten established himself as a legend at San Siro before injury prematurely curtailed his brilliant career.

Maldini's formative years in the Milan side were spent playing with van Basten and the veteran defender sees similarities in Ibrahimovic's playing style.

Ibrahimovic has cut an impressive figure in Serie A since he joined Juventus from Ajax on the eve of the August transfer deadline.

The Sweden international started in Juve's 0-0 draw with Milan on Saturday and Rossoneri captain Maldini has been impressed by the angular forward.

"Of course it will be hard for anybody to do what van Basten did during his career," Maldini told skysports.com.

"Anyway, I don't think it's too soon to make a comparison between him and Ibrahimovic, who has been doing extremely well in his first months in Italy.

"I think Juventus have made a great signing with him and the way he moves with the ball really does remind me of van Basten."

Milan's stalemate at Stadio Delle Alpi prevented the club closing the gap on leaders Juve but the visitors enjoyed the better of the game, and also had a penalty appeal turned down.

The incident reopened the debate about whether television evidence should be used in certain situations but Maldini is not an advocate for the introduction of technology.

He added: "I am against it because it would still be the ref to look at the action replay and then take a decision.

"I am quite sure we would still be having a war of words after every controversial decision."