There was very little enthusiasm about events on the field on Saturday night, but AC Milan did end the season with a win over Monza.
This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) speaks of ‘the match that no one wanted to play’. It was very similar to the Berlusconi Trophy that Milan and Monza played at San Siro on August 13, a friendly enriched by many hopes but weighed down by many disappointments.
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If Monza’s relegation is a classic sporting stumble, painful but still explainable with the logic of a football that mercilessly punishes errors, Milan’s crisis has taken on masochistic features over the course of the horrible season.
The Supercoppa Italiana seems as distant as the place where it was won. That trophy is an aggravating factor and doesn’t heal the wound: with a different spirit, tactical astuteness, greater attention and a respect for the history of this club, the Rossoneri would have got at least a European spot.
Instead, apart from the trophy won in January in Arabia, there remains only the disaffection and anger of the fans. Everyone expresses their dissent as they wish: there are those who remain silent for the whole evening, those who whistle, those who come and go.
There are also those who find comfort in the usual commitment of Christian Pulisic and Tijjani Reijnders, those who celebrate the two goals because, after all, that is why people go to the stadium.
The two goals
A game that doesn’t count is a punishment for everyone. For some, almost a spite. Joao Felix channeled most of the whistles onto himself until, with a header against the crossbar and a goal from a free kick in the second half, he transforms them into lukewarm applause.
They played only because the rules require it and, scraping the bottom of the barrel of motivation, the Rossoneri would find the micro objective of trying to overtake Bologna and possible Fiorentina (playing today in Udinese) to avoid at least the Coppa Italia round on August 15th.
That did not even cross the minds of the Milan players, who only wanted to get through the last ninety minutes quickly. At the start, Monza were better and even scored with a right-footed volley from Keita, but the goal was disallowed for offside by Kyriakopoulos.
Milan struggled terribly to get going, as has happened so many times. Pavlovic forced Pizzignacco into a great save on a free-kick and then the substitutions transmit a bit of energy. Camarda, who was made to throw away a year, helped the fans to leave aside the present and focus on the future.
Gabbia scored with a header in the goal that decided the first leg of the derby, a moment in which it seemed that everything could have gone differently. And instead the music ends like this, the stadium empties in an instant. Lights out, at San Siro.
