AC Milan hit yet another large bump in the road on Wednesday night as they were dumped out of the Coppa Italia at the quarter-final stage by Atalanta, leading to more questions about Stefano Pioli’s future.
This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) are fairly transparent about the situation: Pioli being the head coach of Milan for the start of the 2024-25 season seems an increasingly unlikely idea.
The owners and management will make a decision later in the spring, but it is clear that things are not working as well as they once did. In the meantime, they are weighing up the merits and demerits of his tenure.
The merits
Pioli at present is criticised by countless fans who consider him the culprit of the defeats, the change in climate at the club and seemingly the lack of progress on the field, but they are forgetting what he has achieved.
No matter what happens from now, Pioli will remain the coach that ended the Scudetto drought, of the Champions League place earned after seven years and the semi-final reached, as well as building a young and fun group, of tactical ideas, capable of developmeng many talents.
Rafael Leao, Theo Hernandez, Sandro Tonali, Ismael Bennacer and more – virtually nobody now considered a top player at Milan were at this level before they had Pioli as their coach.
Moreover, this was all done with style, as a polite and respectful person both in the media and in dealings with the management, a detail always greatly appreciated by Milan’s ownership.
The merits are economic as well as sporting because the two go hand-in-hand. Milan registered a profit in the 2022-23 accounts, something that hadn’t been done for over a decade, and that was largely thanks to Champions League prize money.
The troubles
Other things, evidently, didn’t work and injuries are a big issue for the club. The 33 physical problems in six months are far too many, with responsibility attributed to the staff and coach.
Speaking of too many, the five derbies lost in a calendar year against Inter and the errors repeated – the inconsistency, the goals conceded from set pieces, the decline in the second halves – all work against the current coach.
Pioli tried and changed a lot – formations, player positions, ad hoc moves – and sometimes the ideas were successful, other times they didn’t work.
Above all, however, Milan this season have not had the sacred fire of winning teams. When you look at them, you never know what version of the team will sow itself. It can change every three days or three times in the same game.
