AC Milan will take on PSG in front of a sold-out San Siro this evening and after two draws and one loss, they need to grab their first win in the Champions League. Doing so, however, would almost be considered a miracle.
The Rossoneri lost the reverse fixture 3-0 and never really stood a chance against Kylian Mbappe’s side after the first goal. Tonight, to basically keep the hope of qualifying for the next round alive, Milan need to claim all three points.
As highlighted by Gazzetta dello Sport (see photo below), what we are talking about lies within the confines of a miracle, because the difference in quality was so evident in the reverse fixture. Pioli, however, is confident that a Milan ‘of the first half against Napoli’ can beat PSG, and he might be right.
In addition to what we saw against Napoli, though, the Rossoneri will also need competitive fury and, above all, the maximum individual performances, starting with Rafael Leao. In Paris, the Portuguese winger clearly wasn’t at his best and tonight, he needs to show Mbappe who is the boss at San Siro.
The recoveries of Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Christian Pulisic are very important, but Theo Hernandez could be even more valuable with his style of play. Just as Fikayo Tomori needs to be his best in the 1v1s, while Mike Maignan’s distribution will be key. In short, every player in the starting XI needs to be on another level.
Then, of course, it’s clear that this also will be an important night tactically for Stefano Pioli. He still has the full backing of the club and his players, but now he needs to show that his tactics really can work well against a team like PSG.
I really hope we win but I’m not confident because, well, it’s PSG. They’ve got the best player on the planet for god’s sake.
The media having built up so much excitement with the transfers this summer are now setting completely unrealistic expectations for the squad (unrealistic in a large part because of the huge overhaul and lack of focused signings).
If we win or even draw that will be a huge result. If we lose then how can we expect anything more?
The team actually should play without pressure knowing they’re the underdogs.
Hi fellow Milan fan, I hear you often saying the “huge overhaul” is unnecessary and has hence unhinged the team. But looking at tomorrow’s possible XI lineup, the only players really missing from last season’s are Bennacer (who is injured), Tonali (who will be banned anyways and so in hindsight, we count our blessings!), Brahim Diaz (who abandoned us for Real) and a certain Messias (a position where we always wanted to upgrade many seasons ago and now we have Pulisic!). Perhaps, the core players still remain.
Instead, the “overhaul” I feel is more the change of formation and not the 10 new players. Yes, new players need to acclimatise. But, old players are now also unlearning 4231 and re-learning this new 433 setup. When our Mister change to a 442 in the last match, the players can be more lost. 442 seems like a knee-jerk reaction. When you still have Romero on the bench, perhaps our Mister should persist with 433 for continuity. Like what Mister Sacchi said, Milan is not about individuals. It requires a collective unit. If we are still adapting to 433, I dun see how we can change to 442 and play as a cohesive, collective unit in just 2-3 trainings.
Our Mister himself must be convinced of his 433 path that he so set out in the beginning of the season. These new players are brought in based on his ideas. He needs to give clarity to the team. After 1 point in 4 games, he seems unnerved and lost his bearings a little … he must not be like his predecessor who started to doubt his own game plan after just 7 games … Perhaps, the players are feeling self-doubts creeping in as well.
The overhaul was much deeper than that.
We were always going to lose Ibra to retirement. We simply couldn’t afford to lose other leaders. And Cardinale fired Maldini and sold Tonali.
Meanwhile players that had contributed to the success in recent years were shown the door and replaced with lots of players from other leagues.
A lot of our games at the moment are going to pot because of substitutions because we have too big a squad, they haven’t changed the rules back since covid, and then Pioli changes the entire front three around denying each new player sufficient playing time with established players.
So it’s less about formations (although I despise 433 because it’s so rigid). It’s the essence of a club that is very difficult to recreate.
The overhaul may be deep, but possibly very necessary. Retirements like you said, old age, player sales (which if you ask me, is always mutual. The club can forcibly hold on to a player, e.g. Krunic, even if he wants to leave. A player can choose to stay no matter how hard the club tries to sell, e.g. Bakayoko. So I am in the opinion Tonali is willing to leave as much as the club is willing to sell) and termination of services (since Maldini himself has not spoken yet, so I’ll not want to second guess what really happened). These departures, which some are anticipated, left gaps which need to be filled. The change of formation also means different kind of players are required especially in the midfield department and some like CDK needs to leave. Hence, an overhaul is inevitable. It is also unavoidable because it is Redbird’s first full season on with full mandate.
As for the essence of the club like you mentioned, I feel that a big part of it has already diminished near the tail end of the late Berlusconi’s reign. The club lost competitiveness and was almost irrelevant in Europe. But, we are rebuilding now using a sustainability model and everything will restart on the day we play in our own stadium. In the meantime, our Mister and the players need to keep up the sporting values.
I still feel that formation change has partly destabilize the continuity of the team. Our Mister seems very specific about every movement on the pitch, on and off the ball. Every player needs to be very well-drilled and some players are always never ready to play according to him. So even if the player is technically great, he may not be tactically sound as per our Mister. One should expect further tweaking (personnel in and out) to refine this formation change. My apologies for not being clear earlier, formation change is relative like you meant. It is the movements required by this formation change that takes time and matches to mature. For instance, Theo’s offensive prowess appear subdued in 433 and he now carries more defensive responsibilities (which always is his weakness). Theo is no doubt a veteran of the team. But he too now needs to re-learn these new moves. Thus, we are undergoing not just a personnel and structural overhaul, we are also going thru a tactical overhaul.
On the other hand if we look at our cousin Inter, they have considerably lost quite a few core team players such as Onana, Skriniar, Brozovic and Lukaku this season and so underwent some personnel overhaul as well. But because Inzaghi has not changed his formation and game play, his existing players who are well-drilled needs no time to adapt and can even help the new ones to acclimatize their roles quickly. I must also say that Inter is extremely fortunate with their injuries (or no injuries!) unlike us. Such that Inzaghi can almost always play the same first eleven game in and game out. The Mister is very much a one-trick pony I must say. But it works for him because he has a well-oiled team who are used to his tactics. Only way for Inter to succumb is if injuries piled up like ours (which I’m not wishing this upon them), since Inzaghi seems to stress his regular starters without much rotation.
Anyways, it is a nice exchange of thoughts and insights with you my fellow Milan fan. I lived far from Europe but I have experienced matches in San Siro a couple of times. I hope to one day watch another Milan game in our new stadium. I know all Milan fans, like you and me, will rejoice the arrival of that moment! Grazie!
We are not winning this game with Pioli in charge. He is a Serie A coach at most. He isn’t suited for Europe. And even he can’t understand it.
Newcastle had given him the blueprint to beat PSG, instead Pioli keeps trying to throw the 433 at them. Tonight, all indications are that it’s gonna be more of the same.
OK….