Alessandro Matri has named his AC Milan departure in 2014 as the worst moment of his career, having had such high expectations for his San Siro tenure.
Matri joined Milan in the summer of 2013 at the age of 29, with the Rossoneri paying just over €10m to their rivals Juventus. Sadly, things never really clicked for the striker as he only found the back of the net once, before leaving on loan six months later.
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In total, he went on four loan spells (including one back to Juventus) before Milan sold him permanently to Sassuolo in 2016. The Rossoneri tenure, in other words, was more or less non-existent and it’s easy to understand why it was difficult for the striker too.
Speaking to Gazzetta dello Sport this morning (via MilanNews), Matri discussed his career in general and was asked about the best as well as worst moment. While winning the Coppa Italia final for Juventus was the best, his Milan exit was the worst.
“The hardest moment was leaving Milan. I was loaded with expectations, but the season started poorly and my self-esteem dropped. After six months, I asked Galliani to leave. I realised I wasn’t ready,” he stated.
It should be noted that Matri wore the No.9 jersey for Milan, which puts him in the category of failed No.9s in the period before the return to the Champions League. Mattia Destro, Luiz Adriano and Gonzalo Higuain are some of the others.
Funny, cause to me the signing of Matri from Juventus was the hardest thing.
They went straight to buy Tevez from Man U for 14 million.
The performance of each player was different, more than what 4 million can explain.
You know what the hardest thing was regarding Tevez, he actually wanted to come to Milan but Galliani didn’t pull the trigger
No question that it was a huge mistake buying him instead of Tevez but if we look at it from Matris perspective he actually came up through our youth ranks spending may years with the club so clearly it must have been a painful experience for him to completely fail when returning to AC Milan.
The tevez situation was because we couldn’t offload a crocked pato who dug his heels in to stay
What is the truth of the non-transfer to Psg? January 2012: you were engaged to Barbara Berlusconi, Galliani had closed the purchase of Tevez, then everything blew up. And Tevez went to Juve a year and a half later.
“It was not I who refused, and neither was it Barbara who pressured. At PSG, there were Ancelotti and Leonardo, who, years earlier, had recommended me to Milan.
“They proposed to me a salary of 8 million net. I accepted and told PSG to come to an agreement with Milan. Suddenly, Silvio Berlusconi called me: ‘Don’t accept, you are our star, we are betting on you for the Champions League.’ I couldn’t say no to him.
“It was the president who decided, not me or even Barbara. Then the blame was given to the most fragile one, that is, me.”