Arrigo Sacchi has once against heaped praise upon AC Milan head coach Stefano Pioli, recalling how close he was to being dismissed by the club.
It is exactly three years to the day that Pioli was named the new head coach of Milan, as he took over from Marco Giampaolo on 10 October 2019. A whole 1096 days have passed since that day and it would be fair to describe the period as a revolution, with the ‘#PioliOut’ campaign upon his announcement now being replaced by the song ‘Pioli is on fire’.
It could have been a very different story though given that Milan were lining up Ralf Rangnick to take over from him ahead of the 2020-21 season, but a fantastic run of form post-lockdown made the leadership change their mind.
In his editorial for La Gazzetta dello Sport, Sacchi about of the excellent work that Pioli has done as demonstrated by the comfortable win against Massimiliano Allegri’s Juventus on Saturday.
“When he arrived at Milan he seemed to me an interim coach. In 2020 it was known that the Rossoneri had chosen Rangnick, he never said a word out of place. He has never vented. He never attacked the club. Stefano is truly a gentleman,” he said (via SempreMilan.it).
“He was a ‘tactician’, now he’s a strategist. A great leap made thanks to his will and his humility. The Scudetto was a masterpiece, he won and kept the balance sheet in place. And he did it with little-known players, giving organisation to the whole group.”
