AC Milan’s 1-0 defeat against Roma in the Europa League quarter-final first leg last night was one of the worst performances of the season, and it came under the watchful eyes of Gerry Cardinale.
Simply put, Daniele De Rossi got the better of Stefano Pioli by a landslide in the tactical battle, with intuitions such as Stephan El Shaarawy switching flank and the out-of-possession shape rendering Roma the deserved winners.
As Calciomercato.com point out, the two most in-form teams in the league faced each other at San Siro, at least according to the points collected by both in the month of March and the run that they were both on.
Their headline is quite a startling one though, as it reads: ‘Pioli sent into a tailspin by De Rossi under the eyes of Cardinale: future at risk’.
What made the difference was the preparation for the match with Milan totally incapable of taking countermeasures to the difficulties that they found themselves in.
Here ‘the blame lies with Pioli’ per the report, who has failed all the important moments of the season: the 5-1 derby defeat, the home loss against Juventus, the decisive Champions League match against Borussia Dortmund and the points thrown away.
The impression given is that Milan have one way of playing, one that is very individual-driven, and are incapable of adapting to the opponent. Yesterday Cardinale left the stadium visibly annoyed by a deserved defeat, and now Pioli must show he has things in hand.
Juventus already made agreement with Motta, meanwhile we were ‘waiting’ for Pioli to fail which is getting closer and now who we will sign as a coach?
De Zerbi? Conte? Al ittihad coach (this sounds like a good joke) ?
It seems like even board doesn’t have a plan for next year
Pioli meanwhile just ran out of ideas 💡
I may sound like a stupid but somehow Abate seems like someone who has a decent energy to transform things around
there is no official line that Motta is going 2 juve.. stop spreading BS
The hype around DDR is unreal. You implemented a tactic that worked and suddenly you’re the next best coach after Jose Mourinho. Assuming the offside was called, it could just as well have changed the whole sequence of the game. What if Giroud buried his chance then we’ll probably be talking about a draw assuming we didn’t go on to win it. And then the handball too. Point is that DDR while he has successfully been able to motivate his players isn’t a great coach yet and in fact isn’t even a quarter of what Pioli is. Gasperini goes on to win against Klopp and suddenly he’s a good option for us while we’re forgetting how Pioli asphyxiated Atalanta the last time both teams met. If you’re not Guardiola who’s very intentional about his tactics and the particular players for it then you don’t deserve such high praise. Please I’m not saying Pioli is the best coach for us or that he deserves to stay, all I’m saying is that in times past Pioli has also outsmarted other supposedly better coaches.
Pioli’s poor tactics is the reason Giroud can’t bury his chance from 4 yards out.
“we’re forgetting how Pioli asphyxiated Atalanta the last time both teams met.”
This season, Milan and Atalanta played each other 3 times with 2 wins for Atalanta and 1 draw.
Maybe the moment when we got scudetto after beating that team.
Well, Gasperini and Atalanta are both considered good team and manager in european championship. They also one of the best attacking team in serie a years ago. Anyway anyhow, Pioli and the team must have ultimate SheerWill to win next Europa League game.
who gives a fuk about the one giroud missed.. The issue here, with Pioli, is that for 90min we had zero anything. And that is 100% on Pioli.
And honestly DDR seems like a smart coach so far. Sure he lacks exp but fuk it if he isnt making it up with insight and a bit of a prodigy touches. Roma is on the rise, it is not just a couple games they won. Its 11 out of 16.
Pioli is master bullying the weak team and winning possesion againts big team. We should continue with Mr Pioli, because we still want bullying weak team. We will bullying Sassuolo and then win possession againts Rome.
No, Pioli’s poor tactics are the cause of the team not being able to adapt or react to the opponent changing things around especially DURING a game. He has shown on multiple occasions he cannot adapt. He’s a fine as we are type of guy.
Reminder: Losing 3-0 in an important game, his response was “We played good except for those 15 minutes”. At least be honest, but he isn’t. He acts like that game was an aberration but look at our fixture list for the year. How many low level teams scored multiple goals.
Pioli’s tactics stem from his desire to be Guardiola-esque. Pioli wants to invert everyone and send them forward. That’s how you score and if you score, you can win. Pioli is indeed a genius.
Unfortunately for Pioli, Milan has less technical players with less overall quality than ManCity. Milan has less fitness and more injuries. (Which most blame him for this too) Yet, his tactics mostly mirror what Guardiola is doing (but without the brains to adapt).
When Milan had multiple defenders injured, Pioli was not able to adapt. He just said, carry on the existing tactics. He didn’t change things to accommodate the new players skillsets. Hence the goal barrage. Theo has saved him a lot of embarrassment.
He’s not a bad coach, but he will also never be a great one. I think Milan will keep him next year because he’s cheap “enough” and good “enough”. Moneyball isn’t about winning, it’s about making $$$.
BTW: When did Milan “asphyxiate” Atalanta this year? They’ve beaten Pioli twice already and the third match was a draw. The only one that Pioli has asphyxiated is Milan.
Pioli never seems to have a plan B. That’s one of the most frustrating things about him. That’s what happens in the Derbies, that’s what happened last night.
Our games against slavia prague was won because of red cards. now we play teams that are disciplined and somehow pioli forgets his mojo? it was always evident that we played off the pace of Leao, when he is boxed in, Pioli is out of ideas. Since the incoming transfers were approved by him, he gets the blame too, that we are using a B2B midfielder as our #10 speaks alot about Pioli’s idea of attacking content. DDR tactically castrated Pioli. As soon as i saw E92 on the right, i smiled. I remember when he used to play for us, he had immense stamina, it coincided with the period that Calabria had to play at LB. no one noticed at the time that Calabria was slow and not left footed. So we sold him and he came back to haunt us.
our summer signings should include a creative midfielder. if we dont have anyone making those final passes, then we will continue to rely on race pace or power. I hope we have a coach who will implement this.
i dont expect much from milan in the second leg. roma do not have to press or attack, they can leave us to do all the work and dybala sends one pass, they score one and the tie is over.
People say he doesn’t have a plan B. We had no depth in our roster for 3 years to adapt tactics. We cut our wage budget for consecutive seasons before this one.
You can’t integrate 3 or 4 formations in a first season with a bunch of new foreign players.
As bad as he has been, it is a reflection of the upper management’s decisions.