Former AC Milan head coach Fabio Capello has revealed the moment that he believes sparked the club’s recent resurgence.
Milan did what many thought was beyond their capabilities this season as they won the Scudetto by amassing 86 points, finishing two points ahead of their city rivals Inter and knocking them off their perch.
Interviewed by Tuttosport, Capello spoke about the work done by Paolo Maldini as Milan’s technical director, with his comments relayed by our colleagues at SempreMilan.it.
“Thanks to Maldini and Massara, very good at getting the players’ purchases right. Paolo has a talent out of the ordinary and is a very intelligent guy,” he began.
“He started a different job but has already shown that he is a champion. He understood who to work with and how to enter this new world. Furthermore, the Maldini surname combined with his charisma has a certain effect on everyone: look at the negotiation with Theo.”
It was towards the back end of the 2019-20 season when the Rossoneri had a turning point. It looked as though Ralf Rangnick was going to come in and be the head of a new era at the club, but after a good run of form and a 2-1 away win against Sassuolo the entire plan was scrapped and Pioli got a renewal.
“It must be said that the great strength of this Milan stems from the opposition to Rangnick. Elliott had decided to bet on the German, they opposed this. The club had tried to bring someone to Milan without asking the right person what he thought of it,” Capello added.
Now the challenge will be to build on a fantastic season and to make sure the transition of ownership from Elliott Management to RedBird is as seamless as possible.
While of course I love Maldini and Massara for all that they have done; but I’m surprised this article doesn’t give some credit to Boban because he was the very first person to call out Elliot and Gazidis for their pursuit of Rangnick and he was very critical — and public with his criticism. And it got him fired.
But he was first. Then later Maldini also supported Pioli and argued against Rangnick and thankfully Gazidis/Elliot listened and they stuck with Pioli.
But Boban deserves credit, it must be said.
The whistleblowers (he came out to public) may be right but still suffer