Milan Futuro prevailed 3-0 in their first official game, beating Lecco in the Coppa Italia Serie C. It was the perfect start for Daniele Bonera’s men, in other words, and there were some good highlights from the clash as well.
Bonera fielded a strong XI from the first minute but since it was a very young team, there were some nerves at the start. Lecco had their fair share of chances, including a penalty, but Milan sacrificed themselves in defence and Lapo Nava was brilliant in goal.
In attack, as perhaps expected, Milan were dangerous and made the most of their qualities. Mattia Liberali may have been gifted his goal, which opened the scoring, but Alex Jimenez took matters into his own hands with two great goals.
Below, you can take a look at the full highlights of the game, as published by Milan on their YouTube channel. Clearly, there is a lot of talent in this team and despite playing against older teams, they can get by pretty well.
The FUTURO team is undoubtedly one of the best decisions this management has taken.
But let’s all assume that the management are 🤡 that doesn’t know what they are doing
Out of the club’s – and thereby our – perspective, yes, this is a great move, as it will clearly help improve our younger players’ development.
But as an admirer of the sport, I’m never been that keen on U21/U23 teams playing in the second or third divisions of a country. Reason for that is because it denies the opportunities for other teams. Imagine being a Pescara fan, they were once in Serie A, last season they were beaten by Juventus U23 in the promotion battles. Other teams get relegated because of the presence of those teams, not having the resources big clubs have. And this is only early stages, sooner than later more clubs will follow this example and end up like Spain where you have 25% B teams in third division. But Spain is the main example that it does benefit their talents. And in Milans’ case , if one does it (Juve), it would be stupid not to jump the train.
But anyway, it makes the sport loose identity. England doesn’t yet participate in this idea, they still hold on to their development league. Who knows, maybe we would have never seen Luton in PL if they did. In Spain (and many other countries by now, and later Italy) a fairytale story like this will be almost impossible.
But most of the fans of big clubs won’t care of course :’D
The recent Olympic Games and European Nations Championship have highlighted the benefits of big clubs’ second teams. In Spain’s case, this approach has led to an abundance of capable players for both the senior team and the under-19 team.
However, at AC Milan’s dressing room, we face a different issue – a lack of Italian players. Despite management’s desire for homegrown talent, few exceptional Italian players are available. But with the establishment of Milan Futuro, I’m optimistic that we’ll see a surge in quality Italian players in the coming years.
In fact, Milan Futuro has already shown promise, with four of its products featuring in the Italian under-17 squad. This bodes well for the future of Italian football and AC Milan’s ability to develop top-notch homegrown talent.
Absolutely. Futuro pipeline is surging with Italian talent. The most critical part will be the eventual integration of that talent into the first team.
Yes I agree, Milan and even the National team will no doubt benefit from this in the future. & I too look forward seeing more of the youth. It’s a win win win win loss situation with the loser being the small teams (as usual) seeking that opportunity back up and hoping to gain some capital from Serie C cups for example.
If it was up to me, they never should’ve allowed it in the first place. Keep the youth ranks and loan them out too Serie C clubs when you feel they’re ready. But the ball started rolling and I have to live with the fact football changed.
But again, I look forward to this project as much as you do. But I’m a Milan fan, and not an 1860 Munich fan that got trashed today by Stuttgart u19s
Best thing about this is Bartesaghi playing as the left-sided CB in a back 4.
I suspect he lacks to ability to take a man on, particularly with speed, to be the sort of top end LB that Milan would want.
But as the LCB, Bartesaghi has the attributes (size, strength, enough speed to play in a high line and the class using the ball (i.e. passing and crossing)) to be an elite player.
As a CB he’s a left footed Scalvini.
Furlani and Redbird such clowns for creating Serie C team instead of investing 300m in the first team
-SempreMilan commenter logic
Don’t be so negative.
At least we might win the league, albeit the third tier!