The San Siro pitch has once again come under fire from all angles and there is a plan to combat the state that it is currently in, a report claims.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, work began after the end of Milan’s win over Roma on Sunday and continued yesterday to remove the existing turf.
From today until Friday the new rolls of natural grass will be laid and from Saturday the most delicate and long operation will begin, namely the insertion of the plastic threads (artificial grass) thanks to special machinery. The total re-sodding was decided by the two teams and will cost a total of €500k.
Thanks to the postponement of Inter-Atalanta, a match initially scheduled for next weekend but moved back due to the Supercoppa, San Siro will not be used until Milan-Bologna on Saturday 27th thus leaving a window to act.
Milan and Inter manage the facility through MI Stadio and decided to completely redo the surface because the density of the grass, especially in midfield, was lower than in the other sectors. It is nothing that put the players’ physical safety at risk, but the ball certainly flowed worse than in other facilities.
For about ten years the Meazza surface has been hybrid, meaning it is made up of 15% plastic threads sewn into the lawn and the percentage will not change.
From Saturday to Wednesday-Thursday of next week, the plastic threads will be inserted, mixed with the natural ones and it is likely that the Rossoneri will then test the new terrain on Friday 26th, the eve of the match against the Rossoblù.
Last season, re-sodding was avoided because the World Cup was held in Qatar and San Siro was not used from mid-November to early January. Despite this, it took the break for the national teams in March to allow the grass to return to good levels.
Two years ago, total re-sodding was necessary despite the hybridised turf, the lamps used to regenerate the grass and the underground heating. San Siro is used by both the Rossoneri and the Nerazzurri and with both teams still in Europe, it gets over 50 games of use per season.
Today the San Siro agronomist, Giovanni Castelli, will land in Milan: he will supervise the work after having been in Riyadh for a week to take care of the training fields of the four teams involved in the Supercoppa Italiana (he is also the League’s agronomist).
Great! Last game the turf was dreadful.
Another reason why these clubs need their own stadiums. The San Siro pitch is overused.
It’s always the ones that doesn’t know how to play good football that will complain, are inter complaining? Are they having the same injury issues?
huh?
Their coach is not Pioli, their training pitch is not at Milanello, and they don’t use the disastrous Milan Lab.
Yes Inter are literally saying the same thing. “The total re-sodding was decided by the two teams.” I swear some of you just talk sh*t to talk sh*t