AC Milan head coach Stefano Pioli reflected on a 2022 that has been ‘full of satisfactions’ for him and his side, urging them to channel their energy into a renewed Scudetto bid.
It has certainly been a very memorable year for Milan as they ended their Scudetto drought after an 11-year wait by pipping city rivals Inter to the title of being champions of Italy, while a step forward also arrived in Europe with the Rossoneri going through second in the group and therefore making the knockout stages of the competition for the first time since 2013-14.
However, it will be some effort if Milan are to defend their title from here given that Napoli have been incredible as the pace setters thus far and have opened up an eight-point gap atop the Serie A table.
Pioli gave a long interview on Italia Uno for a segment called ‘I re del calcio’ which will be broadcast in full on 29 December at 23:45 CET. They have published an excerpt ahead of time, with his comments relayed by MilanNews.
On the Scudetto win: “It’s clear that we arrived at this prestigious victory ahead of schedule because the club’s intention was to invest in mostly young players, so perhaps we expected to win a little later, but instead we managed almost immediately so it is clear that for me and for us 2022 has been a truly important year full of satisfactions.”
On the potential of a comeback this year: “We have to think that we can still win the title, this in the most absolute way. Then it is clear that if Napoli continue like this they can score 100 points and then we need to compliment them, but we have to think about scoring the 86 points that were needed last year, perhaps even more could be needed this year. There are still 69 points available, that’s a lot but we have to start pedalling hard and we must certainly believe in it.”
With Milan’s ability or, in this case, inability to keep our best players or even sell them and reinvest that money, I’d say that Milan won the scudetto on time, otherwise we would have waited a lot longer than “a little later” like Pioli says.
If you can’t keep your best players when you win , the chances of keeping them without winning are way smaller
No, they weren’t. It was a patchwork team with notable weaknesses that would have been addressed over the next 2 seasons. Winning the scudetto needed a miracle – Giroud winning a derby we should have lost and Inter’s backup GK handing Bologna 3 points.
None of our notable weaknesses have been addressed yet (huh Right wing anyone), and after every season a new weaknesses or 2 are opened by starters leaving the club.
Milan maybe wasn’t expected to win the title but we should be glad they did when they did otherwise we would have waited a lot longer, was my point.
Also it’s kinda hard to address those weaknesses if you are starters are leaving the club and you aren’t getting any money in return to invest in addressing the existing weaknesses and the new ones opened up by starters leaving