On Saturday evening, we witnessed perhaps one of the lowest points – from a footballing/aesthetic perspective – in the recent history of Serie A, with AC Milan and Juventus drawing 0-0.
What was, in the eyes of everyone, a marquee match between two of the strongest and most powerful teams in Italian football turned out to be an epic disgrace, with three combined shots on target and very little quality.
A bad advert for Serie A
Two teams who are not in great shape took to the field. Milan’s issues are more psychological, while Juve’s were physical given the amount of injuries. The result: basic errors in the build-up phase, a lack of intensity and a failure to create any danger.
It was the worst possible publicity for Italian football, which – as Gerry Cardinale himself has admitted before – faces a battle for the eyes of fans around the world. Football must merge with entertainment to become attractive, yet his Milan were part of such an awful spectacle.
The blame also lies with Juventus and Thiago Motta, who was presented to the masses as a promoter of dominant and possession-based attacking football, yet they have now had four 0-0 draws already this season in the league.
All this in front of 75,000 paying spectators who, rightly, at the end of the match, let loose a liberating barrage of jeers aimed not only at Milan, but at the true great absentee of the evening: the show.
The last train
Yet, beyond football in general, the team who loses the most from the draw is certainly Milan. The Rossoneri remain six points behind Juve, currently sixth, and the last train for the Scudetto battle probably departed last night.
Fonseca failed to take advantage of the opportunity to get closer to the top four in a home match played against an objectively truncated Juve. The Bianconeri took to the field at San Siro with a starting line-up that featured Teun Koopmeiners and Weston McKennie leading the attack.
A team devastated by injuries that came to San Siro not to concede, which is perhaps understandable. On the contrary, Milan showed up with a knife between their teeth, being able to boast the best possible formation with the exception of Christian Pulisic, who would later come on.
The result was a fair 0-0 and not even a struggle for Motta’s men despite the absences, given that Milan’s first shot on target that didn’t come until the 95th minute. The result in isolation isn’t a disaster, but it was a bad evening that comes after a long series of bad evenings.
Another empty season?
Now the management will tell us that the road is still long and that there are still a lot of points up for grabs. With a little realism we can realise that it is almost time to unwrap the panettone and Milan’s fight is not for the title but for the top four.
Another year of ‘transition’ seems to await. According to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Giorgio Furlani, Paulo Fonseca and even Geoffrey Moncada, this season started with the Scudetto as the target and should have been the springboard towards the future,.
Instead, the Diavolo at Christmas find themselves with the almost certainty of not being able to win anything, just like they did last year. Under Stefano Pioli a second-placed finish was achieved, under Fonseca it appears the aspiration will be fourth.
Milan left the field amid boos not only because they didn’t win but because they were complicit in a horrendous spectacle. In the end that’s what it all comes down to: football is a sport, and if a game isn’t entertaining then the fans have a right to be disappointed.
Finseka hits everything. He says that it is more difficult to play against Cagliari than against Real and he guessed. Then he says that Juventus has a better defense than Real and scores the same, because his team kicks once into the goal area. How?
Fonseka hits everything. He says that it is more difficult to play against Cagliari than against Real and he guessed. Then he says that Juventus has a better defense than Real and scores the same, because his team kicks once into the goal area. How?
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Honestly people are way overblowing this result. I suppose they would have been happier with a 4-4 draw like with Inter? 0-0 against the best defense in the league so far is a fine result. It is the results against Torino, Parma, Cagliari and Fiorentina that put us in this position in the table.
And that was the same story with Pioli. So nothing had changed. And yet, Fonseca could have been much braver in this match. Why did we start with a box to box midfielder at RW against a team without healthy strikers? Chukwueze isn’t amazing, but he is an offensive threat. Then instead of the useless RLC, Musah could have played more centrally, or even back next to Fofana so that Reijnders, who is better than him offensively, could operate as the AM. There are so many things Fonseca could have done to make us more dangerous and TRY TO WIN the match.
I thought he executed his game plan. Play them to a draw for 75 minutes then go with 4 forwards to try to win. The fact is we had Leao, Pulisic, Morata and Chukwueze on at the end and they created nothing. You can’t say Fonseca didn’t try to win…
Ok, but why wait so long to put on the four attackers? Chukwueze came on in the 84th minute. There were 3 min of injury time. That’s a whopping 9 minutes of a four man attack. Chuk should have come on with Puli in the 70th. In fact they should both have come on in the 60th. Or one in the 60th and the other in the 70th if you want to stagger the changes so as not to go from 0 to 100 in one go. It’s not rocket science. Just like Pioli “resting” a start by not starting them and then putting them on in the 80th to try to recover the result. START them, and then sub off in the 60th if they need rest.
no this game was a dead boring game and most players played horrible and we only had 1 shot at target this game was a disaster and people are not overeacting
Was that a reply to Flossonero?
4 forwards in for the end of the game and they created nothing. There was an obvious effort on the coach’s behalf to win the game…
No, there wasn’t. They came on for less than 10 minutes, just shows you how clueless and scared Fonseca is.
But the fact that we conceded no goals goes without comment. This could have played out like Cagliari….a great “advert” for Serie A but the same amount of points for Milan. Surely we cannot blame tactics for Milan registering on shot on target. If we managed to nip a goal at the end, Fonseca would be called a genius. And since when is a 0-0 result against one of the top teams considered such a bad result? Again, I say if we had collected the maximum points against Parma, Fiorentina, Torino and Cagliari…most people would be happy with this result.
In fact an excruciatingly tedious game. So boring that I simply fell asleep around 15 minutes into the second half.
Mid table supremacy. Gotta love it. That’s exactly what Fonseca was brought in for according to the algo’s? SOmeone should check if the algo has a bug.
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