The Coppa Italia quarter-final defeat against Atalanta last night saw another potential trophy vanish for AC Milan, and the 2023-24 season now risks being a very forgettable one.
Calciomercato.com write that ‘the breaking moment’ occurred when the referee Marco Di Bello’s final whistle went after 95 minutes of play last night, with a couple of controversial decisions certainly coming before that.
The Milan fans booed the team and their coach Pioli profusely. For the first time all sectors responded in unison as an immediate reaction to yet another disappointment at the midway point of the season.
The Rossoneri are out of the Champions League and the Coppa Italia in January and they are nine points behind Inter. This is too much even for a fan base that has always stood out for its unconditional support for the team.
Giorgio Furlani spoke to Sky after the game, and even he seemed a bit fed up: “It’s very disappointing because we wanted to stay in the running in all possible competitions, even in Serie A we believe we can do better, this evening there were negative episodes which unfortunately penalised us, but not everything is going badly and we remain focused on the present with clarity and the desire to do well.”
Reading between the lines, the Rossoneri CEO seems to send a message to his coach Pioli, guilty of not having achieved the first objectives of the season.
At the end of the season, owner Gerry Cardinale will evaluate the performance of the coach based on these results and after the post-Salernitana turbulence, this new disappointment could mark the end of the relationship, either in a few months or sooner.
