Tomorrow’s edition of the Derby della Madonnina, the 240th one to be more precise, will be the first with two American ownerships. While RedBird (AC Milan) and Oaktree (Inter) are similar in many ways, they don’t have the same strategies.
Milan have had a rough start to the season and really need to bounce back with a win. However, the derby hasn’t exactly been kind to the Rossoneri in recent years, with Inter winning all of the last six encounters. With the Nerazzurri changing hands, the hope is that the trend will change too.
Indeed, as highlighted by Calciomercato.com, the ownerships of Milan and Inter are rather similar since the Zhang family defaulted on their loan. Just like what happened with Yonghong Li at Milan when Elliott Management took over in 2018.
Scudetto aftermath handled differently
RedBird took over Milan after the 2021-22 season, when they won the Scudetto, and Oaktree arrived in the same situation but earlier this year. Although Gerry Cardinale sat tight for one year before making any changes, he eventually decided to change the entire management, including sacking the club legend Paolo Maldini.
Oaktree, on the other hand, has done practically nothing to the management except add a few members of their own to the board of directors. Beppe Marotta being promoted to president is the only real change, but the rest has stayed the same for the Nerazzurri. In other words, Oaktree clearly believes the best people are there already.
Change in attitude on the stadium front
Since May 2022, when Oaktree took over Inter, the winds have changed on the stadium front. The Zhang family didn’t have a good relationship with Cardinale and RedBird, reportedly upset that the latter even considered a project of their own.
With Oaktree, however, the two clubs have been on the same wavelength in the meetings with Milan Mayor Beppe Sala. A shared stadium now cannot be ruled out if the right opportunity presents itself, even if the Rossoneri remain focused on San Donato.
Focus on young players
Both of the owners want to create value and make the most of their investments, which they now are currently undervalued. As such, there is naturally an increased focus on young players, who can arrive for sometimes nominal amounts and be sold for large profits.
This way of operating somewhat goes against the great history of Milan and Inter, known for signing protagonists and not potential, but this is the time we find ourselves in. In fact, this is a key part of how RedBird and Oaktree are and will operate.
There are countless examples at Milan, but there are not as many at Inter given that Oaktree just arrived. In the summer, though, the ownership decided to focus on Tomas Palacios instead of a free agent such as Ricardo Rodriguez or Mario Hermoso.
In short, Milan and Inter are now similar in many respects, but fundamentally they have very different ways of going about this as a result of the different management styles.
The last part is completely hallucinated. How is Inter focused on young players? Just look at their squad and mercato. It screams ambition. They’re focused on bringing established veteran players to compete right now. That’s the absolute opposite of that feeder policy at Milan with a ridiculous salary cap, cheap transfers and hopes that Futuro will produce the new Haalands, De Bruynes or Van Dijks in mass.
It just started. Everything is written. This is first year that Oaktree took Inter and like Red Bird there was no bigger changes.
Year after Red Bird took Milan they sack Maldini, and not just him. Inter will probably year by year loose all their 30+ players.
Ok, Milan owner did earn some money. There are 5 – to 10 youngsters on loan who waiting to be sold, such as: Saelemaekers for up to 10, Adli same price, Kalulu 14, Colombo 5, Romero 5, that’s almost 40 to 50 million euros BUT… biggest problem is this season result. Risking all on youngsters can mean bad gameplay result and loosing spot for biggest competition.
Now Inter still have stronger team because they didn’t change nothing, they kept stronger players, but it will be interesting to seen what kind of mercato are they going to have in future.
That’s complete speculation. Oaktree even promoted Marotta. I don’t think they would give him more power and let him sign huge extensions to Lautaro and Barella if their plan was to dissect the team like Redbird. They didn’t release statements about ROI or moneyball or stupidities like this. Truth is that we probably have the worse owner in the world of elite football clubs.
One is realistic and cooperative with Italian teams, while ours is filled with delusions from the management side and French “money-ball” tragedy…
It’s shocking how we haven’t ever used the Galliani line… how many talents went to Juve or Inter instead of us?! Or even from Genoa our old “partners”… Even in terms of depth those players would have been better than a lot of our current players, I don’t think any of them would be starters per say but we would have home grown quota to then better use the limited 17 spots…
What strategy? We got Elliott’s banker as CEO, a scout turned technical director who’s only hoarding cheap could bees for his own portfolio and wasted 200 millions and a “former Milan legend” to our Gerry bunch newcomers but actually a money grabbing mercenary with fragile ego, clowning around damaging our good name.
Inter put one of the best sporting mangers out there and promote him to CEO meaning he’s chosing his team because Oaktree are actually like Elliot.
Elliott and Oaktree understand they don’t have a clue on how to manage sports side of the club and appointed actual executives, while Gerry here with his fragile ego and narcissistic disorder is ready to take us back to the banter era due to his fear of being overshadowed by an actual sporting director.
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Spot on, unfortunately.
It is calcio, not football. It is football, history and culture matters. None of the clowns you mention knows or honours that, except one and he got fired.
To be fair, Oaktree hasn’t done s}-{iT yet.
Zhang made the moves that cost him the club. But bringing Marotta in was a masterstroke. Oaktree was right in leaving the club in Marotta’s hands.
It’s when Oaktree actually starts making moves that we’ll see if they are any better or worse than RedBird.
As Ted wrote, Oaktree is like Elliott. They’re composed, they know that it’s best to leave the club in good hands so when they want to resell, everything is clean. Unlike our Team Rocket led by Jerry who watched three football games in his life and somehow thinks that he understood everything about it.
“To be fair, Oaktree hasn’t done s}-{iT yet.”
Exactly.
They didn’t bite of more that they can shew. They understood that they already got a good team in hands and that minimal changes was needed. They kept Marotta and managed to secure Lautaro and Barella for the future.
Cardinale thought that he was a genius, that he could revolutionize the football approach, but in the end (so far) he just managed to chip away at a base that was doing good, all of this for a “promise” that we’re gonna have a stadium in a few years.
Oh come one, let’s not exaggerate. It’s not like they are a team and a well-managed club while we are neither. Oh wait. Actually they are a team and a well-managed club while we are neither. Never mind.
I have to call this rubbish.
Oaktree gave the Okay for Taremi and Zielinski. Their overal expenditures accounting for outgoing transfers this year, was 57 million euros. With renewals to Barella and Martinez at 9+ Million euros. Ours this year, after loosing our main striker, 38 million.
When Redbird came they refused to increase the wage budget, in fact they reduced it, let Kessie go and sanctioned a total budget of 46 million euros in transfers, with CDK arriving at the last minute…remind me how long it took for Zielinsky and Taremi to join an already solid team this summer?
Redbird had a much less complete squad than Inter and lower overhead. Ownership cannot be compared , this article is pure nonsense.