Daniel Maldini has been one of the best January signings in Serie A, starting his loan spell at Monza with three goals in five games. Adriano Galliani has even set his sights on a permanent deal, a report claims.
Maldini struggled to get playing time for Empoli, failing to convince the managers (yes, plural) after an injury that kept him out at the start. Therefore, all parties agreed to end the loan early and the attacking midfielder signed for Monza instead.
Today, he scored his third goal in five games and it was an absolute screamer. According to Daniele Longo of Calciomercato.com, the agreement between Milan and Monza is a dry loan but the parties agreed to sit down and discuss a permanent deal in the summer.
Galliani is keen on securing Maldini permanently and the price tag is currently €4-5m, as per the report. Monza’s willingness must also be factored in here, taking on Maldini in a tough moment and immediately giving him playing time.
It does seem a little low, especially if Maldini were to continue this. The sit-down will take place in the summer so perhaps Milan will have different thoughts then. There is also the contract dilemma, as Maldini’s current deal with the Rossoneri will expire in 2025.
He looked great for Monza when I watched them in the other week – a mature Serie A striker. Only one game, admittedly, but I think Milan need to evaluate him properly in the summer break before making any rash decisions, especially given his heritage.
He is not a striker.
So our loanees do good and first thing we think is to sell them.. what if we applied that same theory to gabbia .. he came back and hit the ground running and has been key in our defense .. but with daniel we automaticly think to sell. Even with our short comings in the foward positin? Sounds stupid to me
I dont want the club to sell Malda Jr
but what are our shortcomings on forwards exactly? Have you seen their #s?
There are 2 crown jewels of the Milan youth academy: the third generation of the biggest name the club has, and son of probably the club’s most consequential player, this guy, Daniel Maldini, and then there is Camarda a young striker who has swept all before him.
I still believe Camarda leaving would be a mistake because it will really only be for money – that speaks for itself. Taking the money now should be nowhere near the list of priorities for a young player who projects to be a world class player. Young players get seduced, or coerced, into making the error of placing money over opportunity all of the time. Anyone remember any of these guys? I remember one of the more recent, Tommaso Mancini (2004 born like Clinton Nsiala). He took the money and in the season he is 19/20 he has played a grand total of 243 minutes with 9-10 games left. He has been on the bench, all season. Some of that may be his fault, maybe even all of it, but it doesn’t change the basic reality that money was prioritised over opportunity and development. It has to have been money because he agreed terms with us over Juve until he was offered more money. It’s not like he didn’t know Juve had an U23 side, that is was a secret.
There is one potentially overriding factor in favour of Camarda leaving Milan and it may be more important than anything else. It is the treatment of his only equal, which most graphically demonstrates how dumb Milan is and how little idea it has of progressing talent into the first team. It’s actually embarrassing because it stems from the idea Milan has of itself even though it has the spending power of a relegation threatened EPL side.
Camarda is as good as Camarda is but look at Maldini. A world class youth talent with his name, and its importance to Milan, and it takes a former Milan great, the CEO who built the golden generations at Milan, and who for his swansong has turned a side with no history in the Serie A into a mid-table team in its first 2 seasons – identifying quality players and a coach, to see the talent Maldini has which has now been squandered and stifled for 4 seasons.
I find the idea that young talent not given an opportunity is ‘not good enough’ to be laughable, a sick joke entrenched by a culture of expectation the peninsula doesn’t have the money to justify, and which has crushed the development of generations of kids, the consequence being that Italy has missed consecutive world cups, FFS.
If Maldini was some kid from Argentina or France, a squad player at Milan, fans would be going wild about the impact he has had off the bench for Monza. Now he is starting games, controlling them and bombing free kicks. Querying whether he is ‘Milan worthy’ wouldn’t be an issue. That he is a ‘Maldini’ has nothing to do with whether he has the ability to play for Milan, it simply highlights how twisted the system has become that Milan cannot see the ability it its own son.
Italy loves commie bureaucracy and government control. One actually useful thing which could be achieved is a central planning system whose job it is to ensure that these players are given game time.
On the topic of players being good enough for Milan, how is that 35m spent on CDK looking? Is Chukwueze good enough for a 20m price tag, let alone good enough for Milan? What about Salemakers, Messias Jr and the rest of the mediocrity which @Maldini’s Heir cites as costing about 1b for a return of no trophy? If you take a step back, squad management is basically a headless chicken running on a wheel, occasionally settling on the right option as the music stops and Milan gets stuck with whatever squad circumstance delivers.
What makes Marco Pellegrino a better player than Gabbia who only returns to Milan to fulfill the potential he has because of an injury crisis? What makes Pellegrino better than Simic who will no doubt be sold? Where would the season be if Traore was trusted with a bench role on the wing, Chukuwueze wasn’t signed and that money, combined with the money spent on Pellegrino was spent on a young CB with the pedigree of Thiaw or Bissek?
How is it that Barcelona continually rebuilds dynasties out of its youth academy? The current one may be the best yet. I am a supporter of players going out on loan for game time but does Barca even bother? What is ‘Barcelona worthy’? It is inferior to being ‘Milan worthy’.
Why is it that we will trust the Chelsea youth academy when it wont trust its own players. It is not like Tomori was trained into a high class defender, we have had to teach him how to defend and, still, if it wasn’t for his speed he’d be a Serie B level player. Where is the incredible technical quality and tactical awareness in RLC’s game?
You know what ‘Milan worthy’ is for Maldini and, to a less extent Simic and Bartesaghi? It’s about 3,000 minutes of competitive soccer. Milan will spend hundreds of millions euros on average players before it will work out how to get players that 3,000 minutes. These people are idiots or they are corrupt (corrupt because they prioritise commissions which are probably illegal from player sales over their job which is to bring success to Milan). I see no room for a third option. It certainly isn’t the supposed standards of a club that missed the UCL for 10 years in a row.
They will sell the soul of Milan for peanuts and that may well, and probably should cost Milan fans, the other jewel of the academy.
I appreciate your taking the time to write this out. As someone new to the game, the development of players is only now something I’ve started to pay attention too.
I have wondered about Simic specifically in the way you describe. He clearly belongs in the rotation as best I can tell. (Of course we don’t see training, so there is a lot of data missing) I’m truly at a loss as to how articles about buying a CB this summer make any sense.
Maldini is a winger? So he’d be deputy to Leao and Puli at this time. Tough to get the minutes you make the case for.
Carmada is mighty young and likely needs time. Not everyone is Lamone Yamal. But, it would be ideal to see him in the rotation in the busy times of the year (like now) to help him target the improvements he needs to make.
His best position and, I believe, the position he would say he wants to play is as a #10 / CAM.
He can play and has played basically all of the attacking roles from RW to LW, second striker and #9.
Based on what I have seen, and the history I can find, in descending order his positions are: #10, RW, SS, LW and #9.
At Empoli this season he was starting in a RW position and migrating into the middle. Regardless of how he was named for Monza v Cagliari over night he was playing as a #10. His positioning was almost always central.
As I have posted elsewhere in this thread. While he was sitting on the bench we were playing players as bad as Brahim Diaz and CDK is Maldini’s damn position. He would otherwise be able relief on the RW.
I need to correct the record here.
In my mind a winger still plays on the same side as his predominant foot.
Maldini’s primary position is as a CAM/#10. His secondary position is, of course, as a LW, not a RW.
Could not have said it better myself. Unfortunately, Maldini will leave because Monza see his potential but the robots at Milan want nothing to do with the name Maldini. So much talent yet we go spend millions on buy mediocre players from other leagues. But then again this is what happens when you have people who only care about profits running the show.
Camarda isn’t going to be sold.
Lol …bro I’d like to think so too but he’s more likely to be sold than not. It’s a simple fact
It’s not a fact. If he fulfils his potential, he may be sold for a huge fee in 3-4 years time. He’s highly unlikely to sign his first pro contract with an EPL club just to sit on the bench, nor do any of you know who’s advising him, you assume he’s motivated by money, despite the fact that he’s a boyhood Milan supporter.
Camarda doesn’t need to be sold.
He is essentially a free agent who has not yet agreed to sign his first pro contract with us and who has been touring facilities of other clubs.
We have not even the smallest capacity to control where Camarda goes.
Now his management are probably money hungry pigs so I think that probably protects Milan. If you want to shift Camarda out of Milan for commission it’s not the money that will talk, I believe Camarda is more driven than that, it is opportunity. Just look at how Milan is treating its own son (also a world class talent as a junior) and contrast that with Dortumnd’s capacity to develop world class talent and to then sell it for 100m Euros.
If I am being Machiavellian that’s how I get Camarda out of Milan. Fans had better believe that is how bad the system is.
Nice write up. I was just wondering though is it the demands of a big club that prevents us from *risking* youth players or is the culture of not playing youth that prevents us from reaching those objectives. I often say tongue in cheek that Camarda should leave Milan in order to break into the starting XI and it’s quite true to a huge degree. Id like to see him break through the ranks and make first team but if I were him I’d play elsewhere tbh. Lots of.other clubs offer their youth players more playing time. And that to me is the key thing..hey if the money comes with it sure that’s a bonus. I’d pick Dortmund, Brugge, Ajax etc before Milan. And more likely because management loves their foreign players, they’d pick me.
Just like Bartesaghi, who btw we stole from Atalanta, right now would have been worth 20-30m and us wanting to sign him. We stole him and now are faiing to develop him. When Theo is tired coach prefers a right back (Flo) over him for instance. How do we expect the kids to develop. We only play the kids when there’s a serious crisis. Even a regular crisis they dont get playing time 🤷♂️
Btw Maldini is so hard to evaluate because of his father. Sometimes I wonder if he’s that good.or of he’s a Maldini. Tbh I think he might be better as a deep lying playmaker. His tackling is massively underrated but we know who he gets that from. He just happens to like playing CAM/SS
It’s corruption.
There’s so much money swirling around and commissions that clubs just move players around like some coked up stock broker before a global financial crash.
That’s why the only way to bring things back to earth (without a crash) is to limit the number of the transfers: 3 in summer, 1 in winter, squad limited to 25, loans limited to once per career for a minimum of 12 months.
It would force clubs to develop youth and stop a scatter gun approach to transfers.
It’s become as much of an issue in Italian culture as anything.
It’s nonsensical and illogical.
The Florenzi scenario is a perfect example. The coach says to himself ‘I will accept the senior player who is not fit making a mistake that I will not accept from a kid’.
Commonsense says to me that when you play the kid who makes a mistake, you can go to annoyed management and tell them about the asset your developing for the team or for sale.
When the old player fails you have no where to go, you just look like the fool you are.
As an aside, Barca can play its youth products and maintain a position at the top of European soccer while doing so. In the years Dortmund has probably generated a billion in revenue in player sales, Milan missed the top 4 for a decade and has 1 Scudetto to show for it.
Milan, and clubs like it, pretend that standards and pressure are the reason but it is really stupidity, expressed as football dogma, and / or corruption.
PSG plays stacks of players out of its academy too.
Wow.
Great post.
I think this line perfectly captures the issue:
“it stems from the idea Milan has of itself even though it has the spending power of a relegation threatened EPL side.”
This is the essence of the ‘Milan worthy’ myth.
It’s why fans think that a player like
Ambrosini had some sort of god like footballing skills rather than just being a decent player who was given games and became a great servant to the club.
And that is what we need more than anything – servants. Players who bleed for the team. You can’t buy that.
Picking a random group of players this could’ve been our squad today:
Maignan (instead of Donnarumma the filthy mercenary)
Plizzari
Sportiello
Theo
De Sciglio
Acerbi
Gabbia
Darmian
Tomori
Calabria
Bellanova
Cristante
Locatelli
Pessina
Bonaventura
Bennacer
Krunic
Maldini
Pulisic
Leao
El Shaaraway
Verdi
Giroud
Cutrone
I’ve no idea if that squad would be better but:
a) our rivals including Inter would be weakened;
b) it’d have a soul and togetherness that’d be hard to compete with.
Imagine being able to rotate a B team the core of which has been playing together for years?
As we’ve mentioned many times before, look at Man Utd under Ferguson. A squad largely compromised of seriously average team players who came out of the academy or who were signed as no-namers.
As you’ve mentioned elsewhere, it is the same thing for Milan under Ancelotti. Yes, there were stars but it was the local squad players who were the glue that kept the thing together.
And we’ve had this….
Calabria to Cutrone when he left Milan:
“It’ll be strange, so very strange, after all these years not to be in the same dressing room, wearing the same shirt, not having you constantly around at Milanello. But that is football. That is life,” Calabria wrote on Instagram. “You already know everything I think and what you need to do. It won’t be easy, but with your determination, you’ll succeed. I wish you the best, my friend, I’ll miss you.”
And Locatelli:
“Brother, I still can’t believe it, but this is the reality. From Esordienti B to the First Team, a story to tell that the children who are chasing the same dreams we had. That dream that after eight years we could look each other in the eye and say, we did it.
“You embodied ‘Milanismo’ to perfection. I would like to write you many things, but for the moment I wish you the best because you deserve it for the person you are. Life confronts us with choices and we must take them. I hope for you that this is the right path. I am convinced that with your determination and hunger that only you have, that you’ll give your all and prove how much you’re worth in England too.
Distance can never be a problem for us, and we’ve already proved that. I can only say that I’ll always be here for you. Good luck, my brother.”
THAT is what it’s all about.
3k minutes is an entire season as a starter. Love your Malcom Gladwell type #s analysis here but if you are the coach Leao is starting everyday and Maldini will have to find his minutes elsewhere. He just started to start at Monza – like 2 games ago.
I didn’t say it has to be 3,000 minutes in a single season.
Not sitting him on the bench for 2 seasons between his 18th and 20th years would have helped.
He’s not primarily a right winger. He’s a CAM / #10 but can also play as a SS, RW and LW. In the time he has not gotten minutes we have played players as bad as Diaz and CDK as CAMs for what would get pretty close to the 3,000.
But then he could be the back up on the RW too.
RLC doesn’t do anything as a midfielder. He’s basically a SS in term of what he provides the team, its effective but its also part of the reason Milan doesn’t have attacking patterns. Maldini doesn’t have the brutish physicality of RLC but his passing, dribbling and ability to bring others into the game is already ahead or RLC.
And RLC’s power is more useful to Milan and that’s why Maldini would sit. Given how big his father was, Daniel’s skinny frame is disappointing.
He’s 22 years old and just short of 6’3, if he is short at all.
His frame is not an issue.
RLC is a monster of a man, for a soccer player. He is not a standard as much as he is an outlier.
Maldini could’ve covered RW, LW, AM and probably even SS, and he’d save us about 100m.
100m that we could put to better use by signing world beating players rather than players from mid table Dutch clubs with one of those high ceiling thingamajigs that apparently don’t apply to our own youth players….
Don’t talk nonsense. He’s had one good month in his career.
He’s only played for one month in his career!
One month?
How is he not a Ballon d’Or contender?
I always said he’s stronger than CDK. We have the proof now.
You do know cdk is killing it ata, right? All season long not justice a couple of games
Justice. Lol. Autocorrect masterclass
Couple of bench jovic goals and people act like he is his father. If it wasn’t for his name he’d be in seria d just like his brother
still better than Chuck
who is a winger… wanna play daniel on the wing? as a sub? chuck did give us the goal that got us into LE. He’ll do better next year once he acclimates. just like cdk 😉
Different position dude. Daniel favourite AMF while chuk RW. Chuk have speed,drible that his asset for winger while Daniel dont have that asset . Daniel good as deep lying playmaker like pirlo in the past
Problem with Maldini’s career in my opinion always was that he would have been loaned out much earlier if his last name wouldn’t have been Maldini.
Keeping him at the club was to his own detrement.
Ac Milan has never learnt it’s lesson, selling very good players for peanuts, we have a history of doing that.
A very modern example is Locatelli , we sold him for nothing, and all the midfield players we brought to replace him are gone, just look at it, even now we don’t have a player like him.
Even now, look at what is happening, we have two young and very capable strikers, but we still insist in playing a 38 year old who is frankly gone, we never think of the future, we have a visionless and dull coach who cannot believe in youth, just look at on Thursday, Giroud was awful, yet the coach used him for the entire match , we were leading by 3 goals at half time, instead of bringing in Jovic or Okafor he continued with Giroud, Calabria was subbed. Couldn’t he have put in Terraciano, instead he plays a Kalulu that’s not fit.
If it were up to me as the owner of the club, I would bring back Colombo , Lazetic and Maldini back, sell Chukwueze, who is the worst player we have signed in years, and extend Jovic’s contract, and insist on which ever coach we have of playing them.
But we also need to bring in at least 2 creative midfielders , and promote Zeroli.
As for the defence, Barthseragi, Coubis, Simic and Pellegrino should be promoted permanently to the squad, that way we save money, believe in our youth, and have money to buy very good players,
Selling Maldini will eventually hurt us if we do.
we sold loca for 14M. not nothing for a 21yo. i like to think most of that went towards bennacer. another 21yo
14million for a Milanista..??
Let us be honest, if both were put on the market right now, who would cost more, Bennacer is good but honestly he is limited, he lacks the body and the defensive ability Locatelli has, Locatelli is more complete, and has more personality…
sicnce benny is my fav player on this team im a bit bias on this. But i think Benny is 3 times the player that Locatelli. He is better at everything. All Loca has on him is height. He is just back from an injury so his price atm would be lower but if you’d put them both on the market last year, benny would net around 60M(ignoring the 50M release clause) Loca went to đuve for 35M. Even right now Benny is at 35M while Loca is at 33M on trasnfermarkt. His price dropped a bit duo to injury
I reckon they’re the other way around.
Bennacer’s strength is his read of the play and ability to win the ball back. He has nothing like the passing range Locatelli has but Locatelli is no where near as dynamic.
No, we don’t have a history of doing that. Locatelli had a good Euros and has done little else. He is no loss.
It would be a shame to see him leave but sometimes it for the best. Look at Marcos Llorente left Madrid to Athletico even though he was legacy for the club.
I believe he deserved a chance at Milan but if he leaves don’t be surprised he may or may not be as good.
All this amounts to is that we can’t move forward until we have shipped Pioli. He’s never going to change his tactics, poor substitutions and clueless rotations, so youngsters are never going to get a fair ‘crack of the whip’.
Bye bye Pioli, you’ve done your best..