More and more details are starting to emerge about what led AC Milan to part ways with technical director Paolo Maldini and the tensions between him and coach Stefano Pioli were a part of it, a report claims.
As has been reported by La Gazzetta dello Sport, the lack of cohesion between Maldini and Pioli was far from the sole reason for Maldini’s dismissal, but it was one of many factors that led to the split.
The report details that both Maldini and Pioli were very good at keeping their disagreements out of the public eye for the good of the team and the club, but the hierarchy stood much closer to Pioli than Maldini.
The overall feeling seems to now be that Maldini’s plans and methods were at odds with too many sections of the club. That led to a gentle deterioration of the relationship and Gerry Cardinale chose to act quickly.
I’d say trying to replace Pioli with Pirlo (if its true) would have been an awful idea and is a good reason for tension. Glad Paolo didn’t get a chance to do that.
But keeping the coach who rested everyone prior to coming out with no tactics against inter in the second leg even the first leg is smarter than keeping a legend of the club? Pioli is a big reason this team was in 5th prior to the gift of Juve.
Pioli been excellent winning the Scudetto last season, reach the UCL semis this season and qualify for Champs league by whatever means with such AVERAGE squad.
Pioli is excellent when there is only 1 competition, he still has room to grow, especially in rotation aspect if he want to excell in more than 1 competition at once.
Yeah, he has a good job to be a good coach of real madrid young players
If the squad finished first it was by definition not average….
But hey why let actual verifiable facts get in the way of your totally subjective view of players.
You also mean the coach who played the strongest squad in the last game of the season that meant nothing. Playing Tomori in the season that Gabbia and Kalulu got little and no chance. Playing same midfield unless someone is injured but no Adli or de De Ketelaere with Diaz leaving anyway and not investing more time in Origi on 4mil a year like maybe playing 2 strikers sometimes rather than tired Leao? This coach will be gone after next season anyway.
I would agree that Pioli is not a great tactical coach, especially when it comes to offense, but you can’t deny that he has overachieved as far as results with this club. He won the Scudetto with probably the 4th best roster in Serie A last season, and Maldini has depleted this squad of any quality depth. Getting to semi-final in Champions League with this squad is a minor miracle.
Sad to see Maldini sacked like this but if he was trying to change Pioli for Pirlo he deserves to go. Not to mention signing Bakayoko, Ballo-toure, Origi, Vranckx, CDK, Adli, Dest, etc.. And letting some our most valuable players leave for free,( Calhanoglu, Donnarumma, Kessie). Morer than enough reasons to be sacked.
You should blame the management for not renewing dollarumma,kessie,Chalhanoglu,Romanogli.
Maldini has limited budget from the owners,he has done what he can do.even Leao can earn 10m easily which ever club he goes but he signed for 7million with bonuses and giving à 175million release,Leao should have lot of trust on Maldini’s Milan project.
Now everything is destroyed, i hope i am wrong
Maldini worked with the minimum budget that can’t make him renew salaries with 12million,5m,4m,7m.
He has done everything he can do, CDK is the best future prospect and data was given by Moncada.
If Moncada is true to his heart, he could have left with Maldini like Massara because its Maldini and his charisma which brought Leao,Theo,Bennacer,Tonali,thiaw,tomori ,kalulu,maignan,Giroud,saelemakers,Zlatan,Kjaer(by Massara),many young players in Primavera.
They are building à right squad even in terms of next 5years when we need to win Champions league by bringing talent talented young players to Primavera so we will have first team players directly from academy.
All these things will be forgotten and the new management have no idea how to run these things .they know only how to make a mediocore clubs
Can’t get out of the pain that Zlatan is retired and seeing Maldini being sacked🤐🤯 and thinking about the future of Milan
and just with headless pioli as in charge
Extremely difficult week…
Yes, but pioli win seria a with kessie, which is either maldini sell or keep him, but maldini choose to keep to win seria A..so basically its not pioli who win serie a but maldini..this season show it, when key player leave, pioli cannot replace it, that why we only on 5th place
You see you saying “probably the fourth best roster” is completely made up since these players don’t come with nice little ratings like a computer game.
The fact (and it is a fact) that they won the title (off the back of 2 years of title winning form) suggests they were in fact the first best roster.
Perhaps people’s opinions of the players were off not the actual players?
No, but anyone being objective knows that Inter has a better and deeper squad, Juventus has a better and deeper squad, same with Napoli.
Totally agree. That clown, Pioli, can’t read his game, no mental or physical prep for players and I do believe because he’s a YES Man type, Cardinali sided him(bend over type management)
I can see Milan going down he’ll in speed of light by 2023-24 season. Mark my words
While that is true, that it would’ve been a bad idea. However, Pioli team management this season has been terrible, some of his team selection and rotation were very questionable…to say the least.
This is a surprising twist if true, but even then I would still take Maldini’s side. I mean for one Pioli
I did see promise in Pirlo during his Juventus tenure, even though he still needed experience and polishing. If Maldini thought Pirlo would be a good choice to get the best out of our young squad, he probably was right.
I didn’t expect Pioli (which I rate) to go against Maldini, but some of his choices during the season made little sense and now maybe I can see why? I mean, he basically didn’t give any chance to any of the new signings and was only forced to give Thiaw a chance. Thiaw was so freaking good that it was impossible to bench him after that, even though he still did it from time to time.
Adli and Veranckx could’ve played more, they are not terrible, while question marks remain on the handling of CDK and Origi, regardless of how horrible they were.
Pioli’s choices were different two years ago with similar players like Kalulu, Tonali, Saelemaekers etc.
… for one Pioli owes his place as Milan coach to Maldini, who signed him in the first place and fought like hell to keep him on another occasion…
Maldini is why he has his job after the implosion after the Roma game. Pioli is a snake
Glad you mentioned it…and now this is how he repaid Maldini. None of those players that joined Milan this season coild have been worse than Messias bar Dest.
That’s why I believe Pioli sabotage parts of Milan’s campaign, in my opinion to prove a point. I wish and hope he gets the sack sooner rather than later.
The names you mentioned should have been given regular opportunity. Adli for one I can’t really understand his lack of games to this day.
“That’s why I believe Pioli sabotage parts of Milan’s campaign, in my opinion to prove a point.”
Yeah, that’s what all the coaches do all the time. Sabotage the club to prove a point. 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
if thats is true, then pioli is man of shame..how he backstabbed the person like maldini who bring him to milan, the man who (with boban at the time) defend him against everyone else in the clubs (elliot,scaroni,gazidis) because they silently move to bring rangnick and sacked pioli. boban lost his jobs for his bravery, while the owner didn’t want to create more tension and keep maldini (at that time) at the club.without maldini interventions, he would be long gone..
he owed that scudetto, the only ones he could win to maldini
What are you even talking about? It was Maldini who was scheming to replace Pioli with Pirlo, so how exactly is Pioli the backstabber. The man has his flaws in the tactical area but he has overachieved while Maldini’s mistakes have depleted this squad of any quality depth.
maybe next year crowds wont sing pioli is on fire but fire pioli
If thats happen , AC Milan already fall to 7-10 th serie A with 0 trophy. That will be disaster and i dont want to see dark time in berlusconi era finish 10th serie A ,losing just like common back in that time. I hoping pioli luck next season , well he always have luck that save his job in ACM
neither do i but i still want a medieval styled revolt against cardinale, 😛
So inatead of Maldini sacking Pioli, he got sacked himself.
Insert “This has been the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever” meme…
To be honest it is quite confusing. Now I am thinking that Piolis contract extention last year was done mainly because of pressure from upper management😬
I was against the extension since Pioli still had 1 year and he is not high profile coach who is pursued by many clubs.
It could be that Maldini was mad since Pioli really failed to utilise all players he signed.
Yes the problem could lay on the players quality, but the fact that many players didn’ t get many chances compared to his “beloved” players such Krunic,Diaz who are also not really relaible, make me suspicious..😛
Don’t be silly. Of course you are going to extend the contract of your manager that just won you your first Scudetto in 10 years, with probably the 4th best squad in the league.
As far as your other argument, the fact is this squad has no quality depth and that is 100 percent Maldini’s fault. He played Diaz because he deserved to start over CDK, who was given chance after chance by Pioli to show something and he showed nothing. Same with Origi. The only one that is puzzling is Adli but it’s hard to judge as he almost never played.
Yes poli has achieved wonders with AC Milan .
Please don’t forget that ..I am optimistic that we will challenge for honours next season ..
Unpopular opinion: It is Maldini who was wrong and a bit of a snake. He tried to consolidate total power over transfers to himself alone and made provocative remarks in the media. He has placed himself above the club and as a result players are showing more loyalty to him than to the short they wear. He did not want to hear input from Pioli on transfers and then tried to replace him because he failed to provide him with adequate depth. He was offered to stay in the club but without total power on transfers and he rejected, showing loyalty to his own ambition rather than the club’s. I know we all love Paolo but is it so hard to believe that one of the most successful players of all time maybe had an ego that was too big? I believe in the long run his leaving will be good for the club. Everyone from the technical director to the lot man are cogs in the machine and staff for Milan. He thought himself larger and for that he was replaced.
Additionally Cardinale said he expected his resignation, but Maldini essentially made him fire him by not doing so since he knew the internet toon was to part ways. He made the optics worse for the club out of either spite or pride. Honestly I’m disappointed in him.
*intention
I mean he never took a position in the club after retirement. Pretty sure B&G offered. I wonder why.
Unpopular opinions are usually the most reasonable opinions.
People just have Maldini on a pedestal and believe he was the be-all and end-all at Milan, just like Maldini thought that of himself.
He asked for autonomy , he got it, he s*it the bad with it and then he put the blame on others.
His ego cost him his job, and importantly cost Milan success this past season.
And now some people just hope Milan fails, because they are so hurt by the firing of their idol.
Milan will be just fine, especially when everyone is open to collaboration with others instead of having one person who thinks he is know-it-all
Well fu*king said!
If your opinion is “reasonable” it cannot be based solely on one party’s version of the facts lol. A smart man would understand that. We have only heard from Redbird. They are marching out Furlani and Scaroni with marching orders to bash Maldini’s character insinuating he was a power hungry man who refused to collaborate. If you believe that then you are no so “reasonable” as you claim to be. That is completely against that everyone has said about him who knows him and who worked with him both as a player and executive. Why the need to do this? Could it be because they are facing such a public fallout from the callous nature they fired him they are now in PR crisis mode trying to appease the fans? Sounds very likely. A club that has class would say nothing – like Maldini has done. The press release of his termination speaks for itself. Nothing more needs to be said and this constant barrage of Redbird executives coming out if the media saying Maldini was power hungry is embarrassing and lacks CLASS a club like ours should have. Maldini deserves better than that as a club LEGEND of the game and our club and we as a club would be better than that. Yes our club will go on such is life – what direction – better or worse remains to be seen – but if we have really moved on we wouldnt still be speaking in the media every day about what happens in the past. That is shameful. Be better
So Maldini firing lacked class, but Maldini going on TV bashing the owner, and making the club look bad in the process was classy?
Maldini was burning bridges since the moment he won the title. He ran his mouth way too much in the media while at the same time his transfers were awful.
Can you go and publicly call out your boss? That’s done behind close doors not on TV in front of the whole world.
He didn’t bash anyone. He continuously said we need to invest, which is true. Why did he do it? For the fans. He has said countless times that he feels he has a huge responsibility because the fans see him as a guarantee, so he felt obligated to bring back Milan to where we were before.
Unfortunately for him, I guess he didn’t thought about “fans” like you. Otherwise he could’ve kept quiet and worked with whatever he was told like Igli Tare at Lazio, with similar results.
LOL. When did Maldini “bash” the owner? He simply gave a realistic and “reasonable” assessment of our situation. We need more investment to compete with Europes best let alone Serie A. That is the TRUTH and FACT. Every professional pundit said the exact same thing. He was just honest. He didn’t complain and say our owners sucked. He stated a fact.
It wasn’t that they fired Maldini – that is the owners prerogative. Some agree others disagree. It’s the manner in which is was done was classless and the constant parade of Redbird figures conjuring up a negative narrative about Maldini being the egoistical, power hungry, non-collaborator IS CLASSLESS. The statement of dismissal is all that needed to be said. Then get on with the business of running the club. learn how to READ Kid lol.
Well f*cking said!
Well said. It’s simple. Cardinale was on a power trip and fired Maldini in the way he did to satisfy his ego, then the rest like Furlani and Scaroni started playing the middle man to contain the situation. It’s just so obvious. What kind of a capable person would go about firing a club icon like that? That was suicide by Cardinale. He acted like an idiot whatever way you look at it.
Well said.
If you think Maldini works with ego then definitely you should visit à doctor.
He never puts himself first than the club.the man who spent 30years at Milan and more than half of his life at Milan.
Ask the players from the past or players in the current squad,if someone from the squad think that he works with ego the team could have broken long ago.
It was the ownership that let him work with limited budget showing the debts when there is no debts, he has escalated the idea of not spending which is normal especially when you understand we are never going to spend money and we are going to become mediocore club. Maldini should be furious,because it was him who is going to be blamed for not buying good players by investing good money like now
But now Moncada,Management,Pioli for not using or adjusting players to the style
Unless it was not Maldini, no one can convince these many players to join Milan and make them renew under the salary cap.
Many players in the squad can earn atleast 2times even if they go to other italian clubs.
Did you just call Maldini a snake?
Can’t wait for Maldini’s first interview after being sacked. I’m sure it’s going to be juicy and alot of ppl are going to have eggs on their faces.
Every organization have disagreements,.I just don’t believe it’s as severe as it’s being made out to be.
Also, why has the comments section morphed into a bunch of Polis. It’s been interesting to watch ppls view changed based on these rumours.
Do you mean like you have an egg on your face right now after you spent all that time talking, laughing, calling me out in most of your comments, with few other people in here?
I told you Maldini will get fired for the past year based on my unemotional read of the whole situation. Your emotions stopped you from realizing that.
Nothing personal bro, even though you were getting personal in some of your comments.
Stull, No hard feelings, at least on my side.
We all want what’s best for Milan. We just have a different vision for it.
Lol 😂 😂 😂 you call his name three times and he appears like Beetlejuice. Do you want a candy for saying Maldini was going to get fired and did? Then here 🍭 Who ever said that wasn’t going to be an option come.end of season? You’re the one making assumptions on others. I’m just curious as to the why because certainly it’s not sporting results and so far it’s been interesting to hear the whys first with Scaroni today. Now seemingly it extends to working relationships with Pioli. I don’t really buy that but you can and I’ll discuss that with more meaningful people on this forum. But enough of a meaningful discussion with you. There’s nothing personal I’ve said to you. You being an @holle is not personal that just a neutral fact, taking the emotion out of it 😭😭😭. Most can agree. You got hurt because I said you can’t meet me in the middle? That your view is slanted and one sided? That’s just fact. You never comment on any other article on this site..you’re only here to bash Maldini every chance u get. Plain and simple. It shows your biasedness and only here for one thing. Can’t find you in a ratings article when the lads do well or when Ibra retired. What a shame. Always harping on what Maldini has done wrong,
You say we’re emotional is you projecting your own opinion on others to make yourself feel validated. Do I have an emotional attachment to Maldini because he played for us? Of course, because I’m a Milan fan who watched him play and want him to do well (like all the others like Seedorf and even Inzaghi) but you assume I can’t strip away that and reason objectively the work he has done as a director. I can say he’s not great with sales, you can’t say he’s great with the renewals and that’s the biggest difference. You’re just here to troll and get a reaction out of ppl. ‘you can never gave Maldini credit in any of your posts. So any meaningful discussion is mute. There is no other director that has done better in the last 3 years bar Inter’s from a sporting results perspective. That’s an unbiased emotionless pov. Anyways I’ve wasted enough good material on you.
Egg on face
I doubt we’ll hear from Maldini.
It’s not his style.
He didn’t speak even after his last appearance as a player for Milan when he was booed by a small section of so called “fans” (who considered him to be too aloof).
There are certain similarities to when he retired as a player with so called fans and club executives disrespecting all the amazing work he’s done. Very few human beings have contributed as much to Milan as Maldini both as a player and as an executive.
Again the PR Spin from Redbird. Maldini is the devil, a power hungry man who refuses to collaborate with anyone and it was his way or the highway lol. Ya that is believable. Disgraceful that his reputation is being dragged through the mud like this by our club. We should be better than that and he deserves better than that. Best not to say anything than the statement they put out thanking him for his service. BUT of course Redbird was shocked by the outpouring of support for Maldini and the negativity against ownership so what do they do? They have Furlani and Scaroni come out and bash the guy in the most passive aggressive way saying they had no choice but to terminate Maldini saying he wasn’t a team player and wanted to do everything himself – LMAO. Disgusting. Now I don’t know if Pioli intentionally didn’t play Aster Adli and the like and overplayed CDK when he knew he wasn’t ready to get back at Maldini or not. Only Pioli knows that. But it is strange that Pioli was asked for these signings then chose not to play any of them. Maybe it cost us the Scudetto maybe not. Who knows. What I do know is that it’s comical and convenient that Maldini is getting the blame for the lack of development from young players (CDK) BUT Pioli gets the credit for the development of the young players that did (Thiaw)?? LOL. Again how convenient. I like Pioli but he is no master tactician and horrible at game management. We all know this. He was kept because he keeps his mouth shut and towed the company line never demanding Redbird to spend $$$ on transfers like all the big coaches do. So of course they will keep Pioli lol. He’s happy just to be there.
However as a CLUB – we must stop with the Maldini bashing – it’s completely unnecessary and makes us look like a petty club who broke up with their girlfriend. Be better. Have more CLASS Redbird. Move on and stop saying stuff in the media.
We will see what direction we go from here but with a severely limited (35M) budget – it doesn’t look promising. But that is ok for Redbird who IMO want PROFIT over Tiltes – and believe IMO the model to follow is Atalanta. Profitable but they win nothing. Welcome to the new Milan.
Well f*cking said! (1)
You judge too fast. Season still not yet started. When elliot start with gazidiz as CEO , all of comment here mocking gazidiz saying he just want to sell all key player for capital gain , we become the next arsenal etc but until gazidiz out , we never sell key player but they go free transfer. Now ppl here hoping next season ACM fail with mercato fail to satisfied their ego , if we win something next season i believe they will forget about RedBird sacked Maldini
No one forgets how they fired Maldini for speaking the truth.
Its not some ordinary player or personality to forget.
In fast forward 3years,redbird may or maynot still be MILAN OWNERS
But the way Milan came back from Banter era to win scudetto and play Champions league semi-finals, no one can forget it was best achievement after long time but surely everyone who is commenting here paid or unthoughtful by Just reading some lines from sempremilan will get shamed when you know the facts.
Future will show you the truth, all of you should be shame to say these words against Maldini who spent more than half of his life in football, the world knows his personality each and every player tells you how much humble he is, how much hard he works for the team not just as a manager but also as a mentor to all the defense players and even to other young players. Even though you write some bad things, there is truth that spread everywhere before you
I dont care about RedBird . I just dont like ppl here hoping AC Milan fall down just because one person get sacked. No player or coach or director bigger than AC Milan . Life must go on even without Maldini . It is more elegant if you pray sheikh jassim or other oil kingdom take over AC Milan rather than pray AC Milan get relegated,get bad result in field, all player out etc . If you support AC Milan just pray for good not for bad thing
Even fans were mad at Pioli’s rotation system.
I never thought I would say this haha, but I agree 111% with Poli and Flossonero’s comments in this thread. The collective is always going to be more important than the individual, however great the relative importance of any one. This is as true for a country as it is for a political party, a religious institution, an NGO or a football club. Maldini is a legend, but he is not bigger than Milan, never was and never will be. It is essential to keep this in mind and understand that the club’s well-being, success and prosperity must come first.
The issue is that Maldini represented the collective and Cardinale the ego driven individual….
Maldini is simply too big for the farcical and mediocre American BS. No side ‘dissappointed’ to exit Champions League in the Semifinals can table budgets of 50m for summer transfer. Maldini could not go with this. I think Pioli had this result in his mind all along. I used to think that this team was a bit abbove his level, now I am sure. The amount of time given to all the transfers was woeful. Players need real time. Real minutes in their legs to build results. Even Thiaw was only brought in after the disaster of January. Only then. Pioli and his treatment of Adli particularly was amateurish. I watched all 38 league matches this season. Not again
Prayed for Pioli getting fired~ God plans the otherwise