There is rightly a lot of talk about Matteo Gabbia after his derby heroics for his boyhood club AC Milan on Sunday night, and it could unlock a couple of doors for him.
As Calciomercato.com write, Gabbia was born in Busto Arsizio which is a suburb of Milano and he grew up as a fan of the club, making his way through the various levels of the youth academy before becoming a first team player.
He made a transformation from central midfielder to central defender and looked ready to forge a regular role under Stefano Pioli, and yet he remained behind other players like Fikayo Tomori, Simon Kjaer, Malick Thiaw and Pierre Kalulu.
Gabbia learned a lot from Kjaer who became a sort of mentor to him, but in the summer of 2023 Villarreal came calling for a loan and he chose to accept, given his desire to play regularly and develop. That loan would end up lasting just six months as he was recalled due to an injury emergency.
The Italian was very solid in the second half of last season and he hoped for a call from Luciano Spalletti to tell him he was part of the squad for the European Championship in Germany, which never came. However, a call-up now ‘seems to be a matter of time’ given Spalletti was in the stands during the derby.
Gabbia must have also made Zlatan Ibrahimovic smile, who said of him in recent months: “Gabbia should have been in the national team for the European Championship, after the experience in Spain he has grown a lot. I can say that he has been transformed by the experience in La Liga.”
Milan meanwhile are rooting for him and will soon have him sign a contract renewal until 2028, doubling his current salary of €1m net per season, an absolutely deserved award for a player who has always given everything and more for the club of his heart.
Matthew cage what a growth
I always support Gabbia to be in long term Milan project. Did he make mistakes during matches? Sure he did. But who didn’t? Pavlovic did, Tomori did, Thiaw did countless errors. And by having Gabbia in the team, problem with registration will be partially solved as well.
Some people will say with Gabbia, actually there was no need to sign Pavlovic. In this case, i don’t agree. Having depth and rotation options is crucial within 3 competitions. And having competitors in their position will give positive impacts to players anyway.
Every defender, player and human makes mistakes. The question is the number of mistakes and whether the benefits of having a coherent, long term defensive partnership outweighs all of the chopping and changing to find the mythical flawless defender.
And we don’t need depth or rotation in CB of all positions. CB pairings should play 40-50 matches together per season and 200-300 over their careers. This was the secret to Ramos and Pepe (plenty of mistakes there) and Chiellini and Bonucci (again plenty of mistakes as Bonucci showed when he played for Milan).
The signing of Pavlovic probably cost us a few points by needlessly breaking up the Gabbia and Tomori partnership. It also cost Simic, who alongside Thiaw and Kalulu gave us 5 CBs.
Was that not enough depth?
What we needed and still don’t have is a DM who sits in front of the defence and protects the defence.
Pavlovic was such a typical signing of the last 20 (that’s twenty) years. We again didn’t focus, and insisted on fiddling with settled positions.
This is why we have not had an established CB partnership for 20 (that’s twenty) years.
Comparing Tomori-Gabbia partnership to such as Ramos -Pepe or Chiellini-Bonucci partnership seems too ambitious, at least for now. Having relatively good (not superb) partnership in half season (and in 1 derby) doesn’t make it automatically legendary partnership. Tomori-Kalulu partnership has shown it, in the season after scudetto. Even Madrid, after that Pepe-Ramos partnership, still hasn’t found the right formula by trying with Militao, Rüdiger, Varane, etc (and they actually got better results than us).
Tomori makes mistake way too often, as at some points, I often become nervous each time he hold the balls. I wouldn’t rely on Thiaw, really inconsistent. Simic seems too impatient to break the starting eleven (I like the kid, but too bad he asked guarantee, if the news is correct). But I agree we should keep Kalulu for his versatility, although in Milan last season, he seems lost his level unlike during scudetto season. But loaning him out was a mistake, I prefer loaning Thiaw out, if it were the option.
I miss also having a reliable pair of CB like Nesta-Maldini, like you said happened 20 (yes, twenty, I can read number) years ago. But somehow I still can also understand why the coach (and maybe management) are still not convinced with the CB composition pre-Pavlovic purchase.
It’s only ambitious because they or any other CB partnership we never settle on are about 100 games behind.
Bonucci and Pepe in particular were awful defenders, who’d have struggled (and did in fact struggle) had they played for Milan.
They reached the levels they reached because they stayed as a settled CB partnerships.
Winning titles with bang average players is the secret to great teams. This incessant search for some mythical ‘upgrade’ has kept Milan from returning to the top.
Our misguided approach actually saw us dismantle a title winning squad, and replace those players with players who mostly had won nothing.
You kept saying about the scudetto winning team as if it was invicible team and condemn the signings who “had won nothing”. First, most of the players of that scudetto season also had won nothing before (except Maignan, Giroud, Ibra. While Hernandez as youth in Madrid). And after scudetto winning, basically the change in starting eleven is one, which was no more Kessie. But at that time we still had Tonali, Bennacer and Krunic. For new signings such as CDK, we still had Brahim Diaz for the position. Origi ended up as back up for Giroud. Thiaw, Franc and Dest were also signed not as starting eleven at that time, more as depth. Meanwhile, the official captain, Romagnoli (so calabria wasn’t the official captain during scudetto unlike you often say, still Romagnoli who lifted the trophy as captain), basically lost his spot in 2nd half of season to Kalulu.
And see how it ended up the season after? 5th league position in play, rescued to 4th place thanks to stupid mistake by Juve off pitch. Yes, we had UCL semifinal, but without Juve’s mistake, we would had not played UCL the next season.
So, the scudeto winning squad doesn’t always mean superior, which unfortunately, is also the case for Milan 2021-22 team.
“It also cost Simic”
How did Pavlovic signing cost Simic, when Simic left Milan of his own will, before Pavlovic was signed?
Simic joined Anderlecht on 23 July 2024.
Pavlovic was signed by Milan on 31 July 2024.
Not only Simic left before Pavlovic came on board, but also Simic had already notified Milan of his intention to leave, way before the Pavlovic signing got under way.
It’s more like the other way around. By losing Simic (again, because Simic wanted to leave, not because he was pushed out), we got thinner, and signed Pavlovic.
Instead of Pavlovic for 18M€, we could have renewed to Simic and kept Kalulu (who is now decent as a RB with Juventus). We also could have gotten Mats Hummels for free.
Pavlovic’s added contribution was him being left footed, but so far he didn’t show anything great.
The whole left footed CB thing just seems to be more pigeonholing designed to fuel more transfers.
I mean this is how the advertising industry has operated since the 1960s – inventing problems that needed solving.
And it seems to be how the modern transfer market works. There’s so many people involved in the game who have nothing to contribute to the sport beyond transfers so they have to keep inventing problems/transfers that need to be solved.
Add in the media hype and Z list celebrity status that comes with being some agent or club director or owner, and that explains about 75% of the transfers each window!
I said before the derby, Gabbia is our best defender. Keep it up!
I was confused he wasn’t even in with an outside shot of the Euro squad. This is long overdue and more than deserved.
He’s the Buongiorno we had all along. Now go get a recovering Scalvini on the cheap and we are set for years!
Scalvini is gonna be 21 in Dec and has missed dozens of games for atalanta already. Not worth cashing out for.
I would go for him in place of Thiaw sale
20M for Thiaw if lucky 40M for injury prone cb.
Sounds brilliant, yup.
Scalvini is nowhere near as injury prone as Califiori. But he has shown growth, Scalvini is the right choice for the future. Compared to Califiori who has already missed more than 400 days due to injury in his career Scalvini’s injury isn’t as bad. I was sceptical on Califiori being fit enough to be a starting CB for us but he has proved me completely wrong and made me eat my words and I’m happy for that.
Gabbia Pavlo is the future. All we need to buy is a veteran sub for CB to slot in when needed. A kjaer but 3 years younger
Let’s just hope he doesn’t injured in one of those stupid international games.
He should got call to NT like 2 years ago. But the NT manager back then, Mancini, was very anti-Milan.
But again, if Gabbia got called to NT, i’m worried he will is get unnecessary fatigue or injury and it will affect Milan defense.
Before going to Spain, I wasn’t a fan. “Cement feet” were my words.
I am happy to be wrong. I realize Gabbia is not quick but I’d like to learn how he went from rooted tree to always popping up in the right place at the right time in six months.
Maybe Thiaw could do with a similar experience?
I didn’t like Gabbia before his trip either but it was because he was way too scared. Under the lightest of pressures he always just kicked the ball out. He had no confidence to pass the ball forward. Now he’s transformed into something good. I know people have (mis)used the word potential a lot with folks such as Thiaw but with Matthew Cage there’s a tonloads of that.
Renewing Gabbia with a bigger salary, and hopefully Gabbia getting called up to the Azzurri: couldn’t happen to a more deserving person. Go Gabbia! A true Milanista, and our best defender. Hopefully now Fonseca will realize that Gabbia should be a starter and shouldn’t be behind anybody in the CB pecking order.
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