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Kobe would be elated if he was alive
what a ride for the Rossoneri the last decade
at least 8 people in my girl's family was weeping tears of joy lmao. First Inter, now Milan, next up Napoli?
fuck Juve as always.
https://theathletic.com/3309989/2022/05/22/the-story-of-milan-pioli-and-the-love-affair-that-saw-them-crowned-serie-a-champions/
The story of Milan, Pioli and the love affair that saw them crowned Serie A champions
James Horncastle
May 22, 2022
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Stefano Pioli can still remember where it all began. The chilly mornings at Casteldebole where a freshly retired player began a new career as a coach in Bologna’s academy. Up until tonight, his only national championship had come while in charge of their Allievi — the students, as the under-17 age group is known in Italy. “There was Mourad Meghni (nicknamed the “petit Zidane”) and Francesco Della Rocca. I’d go pick the lads up in a mini-bus, have breakfast with them, take them all over.”
As career highlights go, only keeping Salernitana up in Serie B two decades ago ran it close. That all changed at the Mapei Stadium on Sunday night, a place Pioli knows well enough after losing a promotion play-off as Sassuolo coach in 2010. Who would have thought he’d be back 12 years later, a relative stone’s throw away from his hometown Parma, to celebrate the biggest night of his football life.
As 16,000 travelling fans twirled flags of Daniel Day Lewis’ Bill The Butcher and Heath Ledger’s Joker in the away end, as red silhouettes bounced up and down in flare-lit stairwells and the ultras sang their favourite song, “Interisti vaffanculo” (“Inter fans go fuck yourselves”), Pioli and his players celebrated Milan’s first Scudetto since 2011, the last swansong of the Berlusconi years, the beginning of a dark age. It has been a long road back here, to dousing each other in champagne and singing: “Siamo noi, siamo noi, i Campioni dell’Italia, siamo noi.”
Few people tipped Milan to win the title this season. The constant upward trajectory of the last two and a half years wasn’t a persuasive enough case. Finishing winter champions in back-to-back seasons apparently counted for nothing too. Pioli found it a “strange situation.” “No one in the industry thinks we can win the Scudetto,” he observed, “and yet you keep asking me whether I believe we can.”
Why couldn’t Milan? “The numbers are clear,” Paolo Maldini said. Milan’s legendary captain turned technical director wanted the team to channel that scepticism and prove their doubters wrong. “At the start of the year, some people didn’t have us down as finishing so high, but we have to use that as motivation.”
The expectation was normal service would be resumed and Juventus would win the league upon the return of a guaranteed serial winner like Massimiliano Allegri. Forecasts had the Old Lady down as favourites to re-take her crown from Inter in the aftermath of Antonio Conte’s departure, the painful sales of Romelu Lukaku and Achraf Hakimi and Christian Eriksen’s ineligibility to play in Italy after the Dane needed an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) fitted following the cardiac arrest he suffered at last summer’s European Championship.
The season itself laughed in the face of the predictions. Juventus were abandoned by Cristiano Ronaldo and were winless and in the relegation zone in mid-September. Napoli didn’t lose until the end of November when Victor Osimhen’s eye socket and cheekbone got smashed, other injuries hit and the Africa Cup of Nations started. Inter went from being seven points off the lead to having the chance to go seven points clear at the beginning of February only to lose the Derby della Madonnina in the space of a few seconds, recover and then despair as back-up goalkeeper Ionut Radu made a mistake in Bologna so astonishing it still beggars belief.
Serie A has, in short, been crazy this season. Drunk, you might say. It is to Milan’s credit that they never lost their heads, and retained a sober perspective even when things went against them. That was the case against Spezia at the turn of the year, when referee Marco Serra ended up in tears after calling play back rather than giving Milan the advantage. Serra wrongly disallowed Junior Messias’ legitimate goal just moments before the visitors went up the other end and scored an unexpected winner at San Siro.
Referee Marco Serra is confronted for his mistake at San Siro (Photo: Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)
Although Maldini complained about the league’s decision to give a junior official a game with a lot riding on it — and there were certainly some emotional reactions on the pitch — Milan were sporting in defeat. Zlatan Ibrahimovic consoled Serra, telling him to: “Show everyone how strong you are and bounce back.”
Milan followed the same advice. The consistent, largely unflappable nature of this Milan team was a differentiator this season and these qualities should not be taken for granted. Milan’s first and so far only defeat on the road came in Florence in November, when stand-in goalkeeper Ciprian Tatarusanu dropped a cross at Alfred Duncan’s feet and Matteo Gabbia got eaten alive by Dusan Vlahovic.
It was the one night Pioli’s squad players let the side down, a squad that Hellas Verona’s coach Igor Tudor claims is only the third or fourth-best in the league. Milan’s depth could still be deeper and better but it continues to be underestimated. The Fiorentina game was the last Tatarusanu had to deputise for the magnificent Mike Maignan who, in case you’ve forgotten, spent a month on the sidelines recovering from wrist surgery in the autumn. Ibrahimovic has barely played at all, starting for the last time four months ago, while Simon Kjaer was ruled out for the season as early as January when he tore his ACL playing for an already depleted Milan XI in an impressive 3-1 win over Roma that underlined the spirit and positivity running through this group. At that time, even Fikayo Tomori went under the knife to repair the meniscus in his left knee, coming back in no time at all like Franco Baresi did when he suffered the same injury at the 1994 World Cup.
It could have all fallen apart over the winter, particularly with the out-of-contract, Barcelona-bound Franck Kessie flying to Cameroon to participate in the Africa Cup of Nations. At a time when Juventus invested €70 million in Vlahovic and picked up Denis Zakaria for a knockdown price and their “cousins” Inter were signing Robin Gosens from Atalanta and got cover for their strikers in the form of Felipe Caicedo, Milan did nothing in the January window other than back chief scout Geoffrey Moncada in the acquisition of teenage striker Marko Lazetic from Red Star Belgrade. Lazetic filled the hole opened up by the departing Pietro Pellegri but he was signed for the future rather than the here and now.
The window itself felt like a missed opportunity but Milan had not spent it sitting on their hands. A deal had been agreed with Lille and Renato Sanches only for a last-minute complication to bring about its collapse. The lack of activity was another reason to doubt Milan, who were graded down in La Gazzetta dello Sport’s transfer ratings and underestimated once more.
In the end, it mattered little. The business they had done earlier in the season paid off. Business that also had its sceptics, particularly around the club’s disciplined approach to expiring contracts.
Gigio Donnarumma left Milan a year ago, ultimately choosing to double his money at Paris Saint-Germain rather than stay at the club he supported as a boy. Milan had offered him a raise, one that would have preserved his status as the highest-paid goalkeeper in Serie A. The wait for an answer was long and when the deadline came and went, Milan were not bluffing nor unprepared to sign a replacement.
“Maybe everyone puts the blame on me without looking at the other side of it,” Donnarumma reflected, “But to summarise, let’s just say that the last phone call from the club was to inform me they had signed another goalkeeper.” That goalkeeper was Maignan. Rather than follow the crowd, which tends to think clubs should just give a star player whatever he wants as he approaches free agency, Milan respected their budget, backed their model and activated the Maignan signing last May.
Maignan has impressed after being bought to replace Donnarumma (Photo: Nicolò Campo/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Naturally, when Donnarumma was named Player of the Tournament at the Euros later that summer, some second-guessed Milan’s decision just as they would when rivals Inter agreed to give Hakan Calhanoglu the money Milan didn’t think he was worth to switch allegiances and replace Eriksen. The vindication is immense, particularly in the case of Maignan, who arrived from Lille fresh from winning Ligue 1 for a bargain fee of €14 million on roughly half what Donnarumma had already been earning. Arguably no goalkeeper since Alisson has made as big an impact on a team in Serie A. Maignan’s assist for Rafael Leao against Sampdoria highlighted his elite distribution skills but no one should lose sight of how good he is between the posts.
If Milan have the best defence in the league, with Maignan accumulating 17 clean sheets in 32 appearances, credit should go to the whole team, not to mention Tomori’s front-foot defending. But StatsBomb data, specifically the Goals Saved Above Average metric, shows Maignan has prevented almost eight goals (7.68) an average keeper would be expected to concede this season. San Siro is his house and no one comes in without his permission as he joked with the valet before the Madonnina in February, when Maignan denied Denzel Dumfries and ensured Milan stayed in the game long enough for another summer signing to flip the grudge match on its head.
Milan had wanted Olivier Giroud for a number of years. The veteran World Cup winner was signed for next to nothing and would, in theory, split the goalscoring burden with Ibrahimovic. How they would get on was a source of some debate but Giroud is the ultimate team player and respects Ibra. He even told a story about how his friends once bought him a Zlatan/Barcelona shirt while he was still making a name for himself in Ligue 2 with Tours.
After scoring a brace on his home debut against Cagliari, back injuries limited his game time and the wisdom of having a 35-year-old alternate with a 40-year-old up front perhaps would have been questioned a little more had an agile forward line of Leao, Ante Rebic and Alexis Saelemaekers not put Milan 3-0 up in Bergamo in the team’s first statement win of the season against Atalanta. But Giroud came good, lifting the curse of the No 9 shirt which had loomed over Milan ever since Pippo Inzaghi’s retirement. Time and again he helped decide the biggest games of the season. His brace against Inter and winner in Naples were emblematic of Milan’s unexpected superiority in the mini-league between the sides in the uppermost echelon of Serie A, with six wins, three draws and only one defeat against the top six.
Giroud has been an astute signing for Milan (Photo: Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images)
While attention may still be drawn to the old heads of Giroud and Ibrahimovic before him, Milan had the youngest team in Serie A last season and if the newly-crowned champions went to another level this season it’s because the kids they signed did too. Unless you followed the Under-19 Euros in Armenia, few people had heard of Pierre Kalulu before Milan signed him on Moncada’s recommendation. Lyon would regret not extending his contract after that tournament and lost the versatile defender for a small amount of compensation. Kalulu was captaining his country at youth level and Bayern wanted him as an understudy for Benjamin Pavard. He could be the new Thuram and has done so well in Kjaer’s absence to keep Milan’s captain Alessio Romagnoli out of the side that there’s a debate about whether Milan need a Sven Botman or Gleison Bremer when his partnership with Tomori is this promising.
The little fanfare there was around Kalulu contrasted with the hype generated by Sandro Tonali. Long tipped as the next big thing in Italian football, he struggled at Milan last season so much so that the club allowed the option to sign him on a permanent basis to expire. An original deal with Brescia worth €35 million was re-negotiated for a knockdown price of around €20 million with the sweetener of a kid from Milan’s academy, Giacomo Olzer, thrown in for good measure. Tonali also humbly agreed to a pay cut for a second chance to play at the club he supported as a boy.
Tonali is not the player you think he is. The 22-year-old may resemble Andrea Pirlo, but he doesn’t play like him. He isn’t even Milan’s best midfielder. That’s Ismael Bennacer when he’s fit and healthy. Tonali’s game is about athleticism, hunger and desire and the progression he’s made this season makes him not only the most improved player on the team but one of the faces of the Scudetto. His stoppage-time winner away to Lazio and brace the other weekend in Verona, a place where Milan have thrown away league titles in 1973 and 1990, were moments of tremendous magnitude.
Tonali is one of Milan’s most improved players this season (Photo: Silvia Lore/Getty Images)
Setting up his goals at the Bentegodi was the player Milan have looked to more and more as the season approached its climax. This is the year Rafael Leao finally started to fulfil his immense potential. Ibrahimovic once remarked how the winger was the only player he couldn’t get through to at Milanello. “I couldn’t motivate him,” the Swede said. “No one can help him if he doesn’t help himself. Going into this season, though, he changed completely. He figured out by himself what he needed to do.” Pioli has drawn up some excellent game plans over the course of the campaign but increasingly Milan’s tactics were as simple as selecting the Surfer emoji and saying Palla a Rafa. Get the ball to Rafa, a player Pioli feels ready to compare with a young Thierry Henry.
Only Kylian Mbappe, Adama Traore and Allan Saint-Maximin have completed more dribbles in Europe’s top five leagues this season and Milan’s left side with him and Theo Hernandez is the team’s principal strength in attack as was apparent in the huge 2-0 win over Atalanta last weekend. The sky is the limit for Leao, who will hopefully release a new track to commemorate the Scudetto.
Milan’s revival should be a blueprint for fallen giants everywhere. When the hedge fund Elliott repossessed the club from the enigmatic Li Yonghong in July 2018, it was on the brink of insolvency and going to the wall in the same way that Parma and Fiorentina had in the past. The situation Elliott inherited was so bad Milan had to accept a ban from European competition for failing to fulfil the break-even requirement in UEFA’s financial fair play regulations. The squad was too big and inefficient with high-salary players (remember Lucas Biglia and Pepe Reina?) depreciating rather than appreciating in value. If you’d said Milan would win the title within four years, people would have laughed and it’s not like things picked up right away.
Rafael Leao has become crucial to Pioli’s game plan (Photo: Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)
On Sunday, the club came full circle. Beating Atalanta last weekend felt particularly poetic, given that only two-and-a-half years ago Milan lost 5-0 in Bergamo. It was their worst defeat since 1998 and the project seemed to hit rock bottom. Saelemaekers was in the process of joining the club at the time from Anderlecht but no one connected with Milan has been allowed to forget that defeat. “A fan came up to me the other day and said: ‘We still remember the 5-0’. It’s a big game and the defeat two years ago was huge. I think it’s important to give everything for the fans for what happened two years ago and for the title.”
Pioli is convinced that “this Milan was born out of that 5-0. From then on we knew what we needed to do.” Ibrahimovic and Kjaer arrived days later in one of the most transformational January transfer windows ever. Known as Ibracadabra in Italy, the Swede has worked magic. You often hear about legends of the game going to clubs at the twilight of their careers and making those around them better. Ibrahimovic did that at Manchester United in a way Cristiano Ronaldo hasn’t and his impact at Milan in this regard is truly remarkable. Standards were raised at Milanello so much so that even the baristas bringing him coffee felt on edge. He provoked the talented kids that Milan signed, challenging them to be better and taking the pressure off their shoulders.
Ibrahimovic’s presence has lifted the Milan squad (Photo: Nicolò Campo/LightRocket via Getty Images)
For a year, Ibrahimovic’s numbers were up there with Erling Haaland and Lewandowski, a mind-bending comeback when you bear in mind the knee injury he suffered at United and the two seasons he spent in MLS. But his role in restoring a winning culture to Milan has been an intangible benefit no one predicted. The team began to come together soon after he arrived but the project was still at a delicate stage. In February 2020, the shadow of Ralf Rangnick was cast over Pioli in the papers and when Milan lost to Genoa in the last game before lockdown, the speculation escalated. A week after Milan’s chief executive Ivan Gazidis denied the reports and wished to project a united front to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Zvonimir Boban, the chief football officer, granted an unauthorised interview to the same paper suggesting otherwise and was dismissed.
That all feels like an awful long time ago now. Pioli has spoken about how reassured he was by Gazidis and the rest of the executive team that no decision had been taken and the job was his to win. Today’s game against Sassuolo also has a lovely symmetry to it in that it was the fixture in 2020 when the Rangnick rumours were finally laid to rest once and for all and Pioli signed a new deal. In retrospect, that is quite the sliding-doors moment.
Milan’s players were already singing “Pioli on fire” on bus rides home and they haven’t looked back since, gradually getting better and better. Another shrewd January signing, Tomori, gave Milan a new dimension enabling the team to defend higher and press more effectively. The reward was qualification for the Champions League for the first time in seven years. Tonight they are champions again.
(Photo: Danilo Di Giovanni/Getty Images)
Ibrahimovic, if he chooses to retire, can go out on top. He was the star of the last Milan side to win Serie A, a side that also knocked Inter off their perch. For him to do it again more than a decade later, having promised on his return to restore the club to glory is special. For Maldini to be triumphant as a player and now as a director with his son Daniel continuing the dynastic line, even scoring in the 2-1 win over Spezia back in September, is the stuff of fairytales too.
On the one hand, for a club of Milan’s history and tradition, the Scudetto feels overdue and yet this achievement wasn’t expected and still seems ahead of schedule within this particular project. It’s to Milan’s credit, that they were ready and waiting in the event Inter and Juventus slipped up. Going out of the Champions League in the group stages undoubtedly helped, but Milan still had to hang in there and deliver. As surprising as the Scudetto is, it does at least follow a neat trajectory and represents a pivotal teachable moment for the game in Italy. At a time when other clubs are posting record losses, being recapitalised or seeking emergency finance, when transfer business has come under investigation up and down the league and Samp’s owner Massimo Ferrero even got arrested, Milan have not only been conspicuous by their absence from those stories and controversies, they have managed to extract more performance while spending less and are an exemplar of what a well-run sustainable club should look like.
The non-conventional, data-driven, counter-cultural approach taken by Elliott has succeeded. A hedge fund that found a club in hell has led the Diavolo out of the Inferno and into heaven, with Red Bird giving serious consideration to paying more than a billion to take Milan off their hands in what could potentially be the most expensive takeover in football, pending an even bigger one involving Chelsea.
After the game at the Bentegodi last week, Ibrahimovic gathered his team-mates around him and gave a speech. “At Milan they only remember the players who won the Scudetto and the Champions League,” he said. “If we want to be remembered, we have three games left. Now there are two, so let’s give it our all.”
Milan are champions again.
Milan are champions for only the third time this century.
Milan are Serie A’s third different champions in three years.
Milan will be remembered.
“I’m in love with my players,” Pioli said.
And they’re in love with him too.
>bombshell report today that Mbappe has accepted a contract
>extension... 1 hour later his camp denies. Little reminder to
>Qatar that sportswashing ain't cheap!
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I wanna go to where the martyrs went
the brown figures on the walls of my apart-a-ment...
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