Massimiliano Allegri decided to cancel a planned training session for Tuesday afternoon, Gianluca Di Marzio reports.
After two consecutive defeats against Napoli and Udinese, Milan need three points against Hellas Verona to stay ahead of the chasing pack in the battle for the top four. The Rossoneri continue their preparations for Sunday afternoon’s match at the Bentegodi under Allegri’s eyes.
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Allegri rewards the team
According to Di Marzio, a double training session was scheduled for today for the whole squad, with zero players absent. However, the Milan coach cancelled the afternoon session after seeing his players perform particularly well in the morning.
This was a sort of reward, allowing the team to recover physically and mentally at a crucial time of the season, and a 36-hour break before the scheduled training session on Thursday.
These are crucial weeks for Milan, leading up to the end of the season. Having abandoned their Scudetto dream after two consecutive defeats, Champions League qualification has been thrown into doubt.
Fifth-place Como are now just five points away, and with six games remaining, Allegri’s team can no longer afford too many slip-ups. The calendar still features key matches such as those against Juventus and Atalanta, as well as other tough matches, so focus must remain high.
He is throwing the towel and going to tank the team out of top 4 before joining the Azzurri.
Sometimes after all these and they get into the match, I ask myself “what exactly have these guys been practicing through the week?”
I think even he knows that his training isn’t beneficial to the entire team apart from defending alone.
I reckon the morning session was purely on defensive drills so he felt no need for the afternoon session – mission accomplished.
Training and playing are two different things. Besides football I have been training martial arts and it is a completely different thing to kick a bag in controlled environment than an opponent in the chaos of combat. It is the same in football. The opponent tries to break your game with different schemes. Like Ancelotti once said, you play football with your brain, not your legs. If the mind isn’t sharp and the mindset isn’t right, and if you get nervous and lack confidence, it will be hard to execute in the game.
Ancelotti is right that you play with your brain, but a manager’s job is to install ‘useful automatisms’ which are indoctrinated during training sessions. Listen buddy, during match situations or in the chaos of combat, the match may unfold in a high tempo and instant situations that your mind may not come up with anything new order than to make instant automatic moves which were implanted in the player’s brain from training sessions. How many times did we see the chemistry and goals scored between Leao and Theo with moves automated from training sessions into match situations.
A team that is thoroughly drilled creates patterns where players ‘read the play’ together. When a team is disjointed, it means the manager hasn’t successfully drilled the positional play—where players should be, when they move, and why—leaving them to hesitate under pressure.
Teams like Man City can knock the ball against anyone because they are a thoroughly drilled team that understand what to do during training and it directly reflects during the match.
But, Milan’s movement of the ball is a clear indication that a really poor job is being done in this regard especially in the attacking phase.
We have always been clueless and relying on individual brilliance to rescue us for too long.
The last time we played convincingly as a team was under Seedorf and maybe to some extent Gattuso and the early days of Pioli until he go figured out.
Thank you Leao, thank you Theo, you guys were very instrumental in the individual brilliance winning team era.
They haven’t been practicing attack plays or tactics, that’s for sure. If they had, there would be at least some signs but nope. Nothing. They still can’t attack as a team. No organized attacking plays in sight.