Just like exactly a year ago, January threatens to be a month of uncertainty for AC Milan after they saw yet another potential trophy vanish.
This morning’s edition of Il Giornale (via MilanNews) recalls that in the transition between 2023 and 2024, Stefano Pioli’s team had managed to string together a positive series of results with wins against Sassuolo, Cagliari and Empoli.
However, as happened too often during this first part of the season, there was a collapse that followed and it coincided with the quarter-final of the Coppa Italia against Atalanta, which thwarted the Rossoneri’s aims to lift the trophy for what would have been the first time in 21 years.
The paper remarks that Milan ‘are lost between defeats, VAR and gaffes’. Defeats are the constant that comes back and every time reopens an already painful wound, one that never really seems to heal despite the talk of a ‘rebirth’.
The refereeing controversies did not help and ultimately cost Milan their place in the cup, given the two penalty incidents on Wednesday night, one given harshly and the other not.
To top it all off there are also some gaffes like that of president Paolo Scaroni, whose words about the Coppa Italia just before the game – in which he questioned whether it is needed – came across bizzarely.
