AC Milan boss Stefano Pioli will call upon another of the Primavera’s star players tomorrow, with Jan-Carlo Simic ready for his first ever start in Serie A.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) writes this morning, Simic is a ‘little general’ in the youth team and he can give orders in plenty of languages. The teenager speaks fluent Serbian, German, Italian and English, which will be useful tomorrow when he starts next to Fikayo Tomori aiming to plug the Malick Thiaw-sized gap.
Simic could become the man boy of the night against Frosinone in front of a huge crowd at San Siro. He was born in Germany, to a Bosnian father and a Serbian mother, and Serbia is the national team he chose to play for.
Milan watched him at the 2022 U17 European Championship and also in the U19 Bundesliga, when he was the captain of Stuttgart which reached the final of the German youth championship. Geoffrey Moncada and his team provided glowing reports, and he was signed.
Pioli took him on tour to the United States four months ago and made him the starter against Real Madrid because Matteo Gabbia was heading for Villarreal on loan. That time too, it was him and Tomori at the back.
His opponents (among others): Bellingham, Brahim Diaz and Joselu. Tomorrow it will be Reinier (ex Real Madrid), Soulé, Ibrahimovic (no raltion) and perhaps Cheddira: they are less impressive but are among the surprise packages of the league so far.
At Milanello those who know him say that Simic will make it at a high level because he thinks about football and works for football. He chose to live outside Milan to be close to Milanello and looks older than his 18 years.
When we talk about him, a limit always stands out: his 1.86m height. Is he too small? Well, to be a central defender takes more than just size, it takes intelligence, confidence, judgement and above all the right mentality. Tomorrow he can show he has it.
Go for it boy! Be that grinta we miss!
This lad will be a starter before long…