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Reports: Adli, Thiaw and Vranckx to miss out on UCL – Milan’s likely squad

By Isak Möller -

AC Milan will soon announce their squad for the Champions League and quite a few notable names will be left out due to the UEFA rules. Down below is everything you need to know about the Rossoneri’s squad. 

The deadline for the Champions League squad is midnight and Stefano Pioli has most likely already decided his picks. The rules relating to homegrown players mean that the manager will only be able to name 22 players.

According to Sky Italia and MilanNews, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alessandro Florenzi will be left out due to their respective injury. In addition to them, new arrivals Yacine Adli, Malick Thiaw and Aster Vranckx should also miss out on UCL action.

One of Ciprian Tatarusanu and Fode Ballo-Toure will also be excluded. The latter perhaps has a slight advantage given that Milan also have Antonio Mirante, who counts as a homegrown player and thus is basically a free inclusion. The likely squad is as follows…

GK: Maignan, Mirante.
DF: Calabria, Dest, Kjaer, Tomori, Kalulu, Gabbia, Theo, Ballo.
MF: Tonali, Bennacer, Pobega, Krunic, De Ketelaere, Diaz.
FW: Messias, Saelemaekers, Giroud, Origi, Rebic, Leao.

The players in italics count as locally or association-trained players. Without them included, Milan can only name 17 players in the squad.

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Tags AC Milan Champions League Stefano Pioli

42 Comments

  4. Why is Adli NOT in the squad? He should be ahead of Diaz in the pecking order. I don’t know why Pioli is obsessed with Brahim. As for Vrancxx, I think he should be ahead of Krunic…solely based on fitness. Krunic is unlikely to be fit for the 1st 2 UCL games anyway

  5. Kalulu can be backup at leftback do why keep balo???
    To be honest its not suprising that the new signings that Pioli has not seen are left out but players such as Diaz, Messias, Bali have had their chanses and failed and Adli deserve a chance.

  8. I think the coach is trying not to create a division in the team….He is giving the people that made us qualify for champion league priority over others who came new. CDK and Sergio case are different because we don’t have enough or reliable cover in these roles

    1. Right, because Diaz’s performance was critical for us qualifying in CL. That 1 good pass out of 10 really made the difference.
      At least Adli didn’t hurt our chances from Bordeaux. Diaz did.

      1. @A

        Exactly, Diaz one good half of match every month is worth it right???

        It was this stupid pioli sentiments that made us draw against atalanta and sassuolo, instead of playing players who deserve it, he stupidly kept Diaz in first eleven….

        this is why I like Mourinho, he doesn’t care when you came in, on e you are good, you are playing, Dybala and matic already playing all the match

  9. Very funny comments here knowing fully how hard the decision is and understanding the squad depth we have. Any decision made by the coaching would have been well thought of and communicated to everyone.
    We have the league as well and the world Cup is coming as well, so guys take a break.

    1. Right, it’s funny seeing the complaints given that I have warned them over and over that a lot of new signings will be excluded from UCL as the scudetto heroes have increased priority.

  10. I would have preferred Adli and Aster in and Diaz and Toure out. Diaz is useless – play Adli – and Dest can play back up LB and Kalulu can play RB – his natural position.

    I think our best line up in the back are Theo-Tomori-Kajer-Kalulu. Kalulu can offer much more going forward than Calabria (amd we need all the help we can get w our weak RW’s) and when Theo darts up the LW we revert to a back 3 of Tomori-Kajer-Kalulu. That is what Maldini envisioned when going after Botman.

    1. To put Kalulu in RB is a NO NO, dude is doing magic in CB, Calabria is really doing well, he is the reason why Theo bombs forward comfortably…..

      Calabria is Must start as far as Theo is on LB

      1. It’s to get Kajer back on the pitch. We need his experience and those long ball passes he sprays all over the field in such an easy fashion to help aid in our attack. Same with Kalulu. Need more from the RB position in an attacking role given our weak RW options. Kalulu would not on;y defend and slide into back 3 when Theo goes up (alike Calabria does) but unlike Calabria, Kalulu can attack amd cross the ball into the box, something we desperately lack. So not a knock on Kalulu – just the opposite- he’s so good at CB and could be even better at RB (his original position) – just a way to generate more offense and get Kajer’s leadership and experience back on the pitch – at Calabira’s expense. As for Adli – he has shown more in 2 games than Diaz had in an entire season lol.

  11. It is not impossible to left out Adli and Thiaw.
    Instead of leaving them itis better to leaf Kjear who is injure Brone and Krunic.

  13. They can also include Florenzi as homegrown without affecting the 17 (not in the pist above). He’s injured now but he can recover eventually and is likely to make the registration list along with a couple academy players to round out the 25 seeing as you can sub out a couple of spots later on.

    Also, this is making the assumption that Fode is automatic for UCL. I think it might be either Fode or Dest in which then you can take Adli. It would hard to justify taking a loan player over a permanent one but it the same situation taking Diaz over Adli.

    This is gonna be interesting.

  15. I just got instant depression from reading this. Justice for Yacine Adli. Now way Ballo Torre, Salamaekers or an ijured Krunic should make this squad in front of this guy. Rubbish . Neither Brahim for that matter.

  16. Forget Adli. He can’t even get on the field in serie Ass. He hasn’t proven anything yet. At least Brahim has some UCL experience
    Not having Aster Vranckx is the biggest mistake.
    Besides Bennacer and Tonali, who will be the starters, there are only Pobega and Krunic for double pivot.
    Pobega is unproven on that stage and honestly looks lost in double pivot. While Krunic will probably miss at least 2 of the group games.
    Plus Aster has the UCL experience from last year when he was dominating Renato Sanches.
    I don’t understand why is Ballo Toure on the list when Pioli doesn’t even use him in serie A

      1. Have we seen anything from Adli that would justify him being on the list or the hatred most fans have towards Diaz clouds their judgment.
        Adli has barely played in serie A. It’s obvious that Pioli, the coach, (not Me), doesn’t trust Adli. He trust Diaz more. So if he doesn’t trust him why would he put him on the list and not play him.
        P.S. you can try & learn how to interact with other people here without throwing constant insults,assuming they are under the influence of something, and thinking you know football better than everyone else.

        1. I actually agree with this somewhat Z. I mean. The Scudetto winning coach knows better than all of us. We haven’t seen Adli except those hype up articles of how “good he looked” in pre-season training….passes that were normal that even me with a bum knee could make. And there has to be a reason why Adli hasn’t started over the other guys. The coach has to have seen some issue with him in the role. Last time out vs Sassuolo he didn’t look great either. He probably hasn’t grasped the system as yet

  18. I don’t believe that report because leaving Florenzi out wouldn’t make any sense, he’s basically a ‘free’ #23 in case he returns from injury sooner.

    People moaning about Diaz over Adli… get over it, it can’t come as a surprise. In the eyes of fans, Adli is going to be that player who gets better and better the less he plays, instead of people asking if there’s a reason he’s not picked.

    Ballo-Toure has to be induced surely? He’s the only left-footed full back if Theo gets injured.

      1. I watched the last game where he kept picking up the ball around the halfway line and making no ground because he’s not very quick and doesn’t yet have the pressing side to his game that is essential to Pioli’s tactics. He’ll learn the latter and then he’ll play more – presumably that’s why he’s stayed rather than being loaned to Torino or similar. The lack of speed is something Pioli will need to adjust to or use in certain situations, but if he knows Diaz’s game better then fair enough for these 6 games.

  20. Do not mind those blind bats, they follow whatever is written and do not have the judgement of their own.

    Diaz over Adli is a Sin.

    Diaz is Madrid kid, he literally said he want to return to Madrid while Adli our own owned player is now sitting on the bench for Madrid trainee……this is only happening because pioli is the coach and this explains why the dude took so late to win any championship, he is too sentimental, this Diaz bullshit already cost us some matches already, DIAZ IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH

    1. If someone on this platform can get in touch with Milan new ownership, please let them know that Pioli needs to be fired and they should immediately hire @Kossy, the most football knowledgeable human on the planet earth

  21. I’m actually surprised @Yelnats242 is mum in this thread.

    He kept tutoring everyone here about the UEFA homegrown rules and squad eligibility and all that… and now this?

    Mr Lecturer please turn up and correct this, these guys gotta be wrong… I’ve keenly followed you tutorials, please don’t tell me you’ve been wrong all along.
    ✌

      1. And yes, the article made mistake by not including Florenzi. Even if he is injured for months, he can still be included as no other player can use his Italian-homegrown slot.

        Note that in Serie A, U22 (Kalulu, Thiaw, Dest, Vranckx, Adli, CDK, and Lazetic) are exempt so Milan can use all 30 players. However, in UCL, only U21 who have been in the club for at least 2 years are exempt. None of these 7 players qualify for it so they can’t use B list and have to compete for the 17 unrestricted slots in the A list.

        Hence why I previously said it over and over that without homegrown signing, Milan can only register 23 first team (not counting primavera) players in UCL. Signing young players work in Serie A but if not homegrown, it result in a lot of UCL exclusion.

        1. I previously said that the exemption in Serie A registration is U21, the article that I made as reference was GdS article translated by SempreMilan last March which say that the exemption for Serie A is U21. However, I found out few days ago that since 2018, the exemption ceiling is increased from U21 to U22, that GdS article was incorrect.

      2. Note that when I talk about homegrown in the last few weeks, it was about Serie A registration, not UCL registration (they have different rules, UCL has stricter exemption).

        I think I have stopped talking about the UCL rule since 2-3 weeks ago as most of the replies told me that Milan can simply exclude them. I doubt they had excluding Adli in mind when they made those replies though.

  22. Adli needs to eat his broccoli and build muscle. Skinny limp boy like that will get bullied in the midfield with that current physique. He’s unlike Kessie.

    Diaz has more champions league exp than Adli, fail to see why these people complaining in the comments. Do you manage the team every day or watch and judge in front of your screen?

  24. Ok, thanks Mr Lecturer… I knew you wouldn’t let me down.

    I remember the u22 exemption which you had earlier highlighted, and I remember you stating that the age category is limitless, I can’t remember the thread right now but I believed strongly you were referring to UEFA competitions.

    Thanks

    1. Well, the U22 was for Serie A, not UCL. It might be confusing because there are 2 different registrations which differ in youth exemption. Sometimes, I might forget to put Serie A/UCL label on my comment which result in ambiguity.

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