AC Milan will take on Hellas Verona in the final game of the season and Stefano Pioli has now announced his XI for the game. As has become the theme over the last few weeks, he has opted for consistency.
Milan secured Champions League qualification with the 1-0 win against Juventus last weekend, and thus have nothing to play for this evening. Especially since Inter won their game against Torino, meaning third place is out of reach.
In any case, Pioli has decided to make zero changes to the eleven we saw against the Bianconeri. Rade Krunic was a question mark due to his physical condition but he’s evidently well enough to play from the start.
Charles De Ketelaere was seemingly in the running for a starting spot again but Brahim Diaz, who could make his last game for the club, he has gotten the nod instead.
Official Milan XI (4-2-3-1): Maignan; Calabria, Thiaw, Tomori, Theo; Tonali, Krunic; Messias, Diaz, Leao; Giroud.
Bench: Mirante, Tătăruşanu; Ballo-Touré, Florenzi, Gabbia, Kalulu, Kjær; Adli, Bakayoko, Pobega, Saelemaekers, Vranckx; De Ketelaere, Origi.
❗ OFFICIAL: #ACMilan's starting XI for #MilanVerona…
🤔 Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/2jdxSu4lFM
— SempreMilan (@SempreMilanCom) June 4, 2023
Official Verona XI (3-4-2-1): Montipò; Magnani, Hien, Cabal; Faraoni, Sulemana, Veloso, Tameze, Depaoli; Ngonge, Djuric.
Bench: Berardi, Perilli; Ceccherini, Coppola, Dawidowicz, Doig, Zeefuik; Abildgaard, Hrustic, Lazović, Terracciano; Braaf, Gaich, Kallon, Verdi.
Pioli out.
He’ll stay on, you mad?
Have fun complaining for the next year while normal fans enjoy supporting Milan
I am mad, but I’ll get over it, I’ve been though worse. Enjoy watching Diaz lose every ball while you still can.
You havent been through anything, I can bet 100% you just ignored Milan over the past decade if you think these past 3 years are anything to complain so heavily about.
Its an amazing achievement to get here, fans should be happy but nah, everything always just sucks
I admit i skipped some games before 2017, but when I did watch I had no expectations.
Completely different scenario now, when after winning the title we finished 5th (based on what happened on the pitch).
And that’s mostly thanks to Leao.
I’ve shared the stats before but I’ll do it again:
Without Leao we have a 10% win record with 0.7 points per game. That would put us somewhere above Sampdoria, but behind Cremonese, relegated.
I know we sucked during the banter era, but if you took away any of those players, we still would have been a mid table team.
In my opinion the above stats reveal a lot about Pioli’s ability, but of course you’re free to disagree.
Regardless, having to watch Diaz for 3 years has been the most frustrating part, and I suspect I’ll have more chances to get behind Pioli once he’s gone.
Your expectations are spend like an oil rigged club, bribe UEFA to get past FFP and win everything that way?
I would stop watching Milan if that ever happened, its disgusting.
We are still trying to financially recover from what the Chinese did when they recklessly lost over 250m here.
Who would you prefer to see on that role? CdK who looks like his about to cry every time he’s on the pitch? Or Isma with his braces on?
Ok. Maldini and Cardinale are taking in consideration your influential opinion.
As long as they ignore Pioli’s opinion to keep Diaz at the club they can ignore mine too, no problem. They’ll leave him with less options to make bad decisions.
Why?
Why? For starting Brahim “…and the attack fizzles out” Diaz.
Who would you prefer to see on that role? CdK who looks like his about to cry every time he’s on the pitch? Or Isma with his braces on?
Adli looked better than Diaz every time he played. Or Krunic. Or even CDK. They keep saying he will get better. How? By sitting on the bench? Better to give time to a Real player?
I didnt get the memo that only positive comments are allowed !! I will pass on the joy of watching messias calabria and diaz!
If today is Diaz last game as a Milan player (and I hope it is), I am glad Pioli is starting him.
Was he as good as we wanted him to be? No. But the effort was always there. He has some physical limitations but he did play a part of Milan growth and success over the last 3 years.
Diaz plays with a lot of heart, unfortunately as the game has evolved over the past few years the 10 has become less finesse (and heart) to more muscle and imposing your will on the opposition and tall enough to see through the chaos, personally I would rather have seen Rebic or even Tonali there, correct me if wrong didn’t Krunic start there a few times. Often wonder why we did not get Dybala….oh well CL here we come with an asterisk.
If there is any back room debates still being had about the futures of CDK and Adli, why wouldn’t you use a nothing match to have one last look at them?
Why is a loanee who is leaving getting the nod over people who have points to prove?
Typical old school Italian ‘trust’ mentality. Fine if we didn’t have a non-typical Italian business model.
Because it’s not a friendly match and you have over 70.000 spectators who’d want watch your team win and play good football. They deserve nothing but the best line up possible.
We are talking about starting our marque signing over a loanee and trying Adli over Krunic. You don’t have even half a valid point.
Again and again, based on this season outing, that loanee performs better than the marquee. If it’s only about loanee thing over and over again, with the same logic, in Inter they should play Correa all the time instead of Lukaku.
And if this is the last match of Diaz, it’s only right to start him. The marquee will have lots and lots of chance to proof next season.
‘Trying’ that’s the key word. This is the last match of the season, of course a good coach would like to put the best mark. Moreover in the season where there were many ups and downs. He can do lots of trying starting from the next pre season.
Based on the comments most of the fans actually wanted to see Adli and some new things like CDK on the RW in this non important game. Rather then the same old things that they have been seeing all season long. It was literatly the perfect game to try out some new things.
Further proof that Leao is the only difference between Pioli’s Milan and a relegated team.