AC Milan defender Jan-Carlo Simic has admitted that he is only thinking game by game while he reflected on what has been a big campaign for him from a personal point of view.
Simic has four Serie A appearances and one goal to his name and he has come across like a very mature defender when given minutes, something that seems to have transitioned into his leader status with Ignazio Abate’s side.
Milan will look to build around him in the years to come, but as MilanNews recently reported they are having some difficulties in agreeing terms over a new deal. The report stated that talks have been going on for a few weeks but are at a stalemate.
It is believed that the Rossoneri are planning to kick-start the talks again in the next few weeks to narrow the gap, then it must be seen if the plan is to permanently promote him to the first team, to use him in the U23 side that might be registered or loan him out.
Simic spoke at Sportitalia’s ‘Primavera Football Awards’ where he was awarded as the best defender in the Primavera 1 league, with his comments relayed by MilanNews.
Yesterday’s 3-3 drew against Torino got you into the play-offs…
“It was a crazy match but in the end a draw was enough to reach the play-offs, which was one of our objectives.”
How do you rate Milan’s season?
“It was a year of growth for all of us. I think that the Youth League final we lost made us an even more united team. Now there are the playoffs and we want to give our best to get to the end.”
You made your Serie A debut too…
“It was a beautiful day, I will never forget it. Each of us dreams of scoring a goal on our debut. The noise of San Siro after the goal will always remain in my heart.”
Where can this Milan go?
“We are a very united, humble group. We work very hard every day, we have a wonderful relationship with all the staff, with the coach, we are friends between us off the pitch, and I can’t say where we will go but I can say that we will give the best to get as far as possible.”
What did Ignazio Abate say or ask you at the final whistle of the match against Torino?
“He was very happy. We achieved a historic result for Milan, it had been many years since Milan had reached the play-offs. Even in Europe we were the first Italian team to play in a Youth League final, so we have already achieved a historic result in season, but we can do more.”
What about your own future?
“I’m a person who thinks day after day, match after match. My future now is the match against Lazio, where we want to give everything as a team to get to the end.”
Attention all romantics out there – let’s try not to hype every player that comes out of our academy. The vast vast majority of these kidd will become at most average serie a players, statistically speaking.
Boss . Milan has a track record of producing quality players. Also this guy is already being called by Serbia national team many of his mates in primavera can’t boast of same .
Statistically speaking we do tend to take the top 1% of youth players on the planet and fail to convert them to first team players even squad players.
Statistically (and completely unrelatedly) we also sign a new CB nearly every transfer window (along with new players for every other position).
And statistically Inter have two of our former CBs starting for them….
Not everyone can or will make it. Why would u want to sign every kid out of the Primavera is beyond me. The system is designed to filter out on average the best of the best.
But less than a 1% success rate is kind of embarrassing.
Like why not just abandon the youth team altogether?
Save money.
Well it depends on what you define as success. And how did you come up with 1% ??? If you mean 1% of a cohort year makes it playing first team football, then that’s fine as a replacement rate. As.suming about 500 kids in the Primavera, it means each first team gets a starter every 4 years.
Now this…
“Like why not just abandon the youth team altogether?” …..is simply incredibly stupid. Whether anyone ‘makes it’ from our team is besides the point of the overall development of youth in Italy.
Well, Darmian is a Milan youth player, I don’t know who the second one is (Acerbi was bought when he was young). But actually you’re proving my point
1. Both these examples are not world beaters, and are pretty much average serie a players.
2. You can also take De Sciglio and Locatelli from Juve as examples.
3. How many youth players have we churned out to produce these, again objectively average, seria a players?
I was referring to Darmian and Acerbi.
We signed the latter but then gave up on him (when he had some personal problems).
I am not sure what ‘average is’ . That’s all very subjective. But many ‘average players’ have won titles. The great Milan, Man Utd, Juve and Real teams had ‘average players’.
The key is less some arbitrary rating but having a group of players who have played together for years and will die for each other. We then add a few ‘world class’ players to that.
And because we haven’t faffed around trying to sign our 15th sub-CB in 15 years we have more time and money to focus on world class players.
The vast majority of Milan’s signings in the past 15 years or so have been a total waste of time, money and effort. Billions wasted.
Darmian is a loss for sure. I’d like him to have stayed with us. but he’s pretty much the only one and Auba who I would have liked to stay. But you’re not painting the picture right again..would be have developed. Look at whos ahead of him in the pecking order….Nesta and Thiago Silva. Good luck with that.
As for Acerbi, are you going to wait 10 years for the player to start to play well? Dude was horrendous when he was with us. Sometimes things dont work out for whatever reason.
I like how you like to call out the few ‘successful’ ones..how about di Gennaro, or Marcus Diniz, or Albertazzi? How about them? Should we have kept them too?? Or maybe u don’t know them because they just couldn’t cut it
@Baresis Dream all facts. If we go back to that Viareggio conquering Primavera side around maybe 2013-14 ish (memory is no longer what it used to be, so could be later) that was so hyped up. I believe only Calabria (and maybe Petagna) somewhat made a name for themselves. Otherwise its some second and third division stuff or just left football altogether. Oh we have a DM named Eletu or fan fave Zeroli who has potential? Ok we had a guy called Mastalli that was just as hyped back then back then….he’s probably playing in 2nd or 3rd Division football as we speak. This is why I don’t take much stock in the Primavera until.they actually revamp the format or something
Exactly IKWYDLS. And Calabria amd Patenga are for me the definition of average serie a players.
There’s something in these kids because Simić just won best defender award, Zeroli best midfielder award and Camarda young revelation award at Primavera Best Awards by Sportitalia for this season. The hype is real.
About Camadra I’m not arguing; the hype is indeed real (although no guarantees with him as well). Everyone else …not buying it
Bro, we had the same thing happen in 2014. Mastalli was a beast until he wasn’t. Albertazzi was supposed to be as good or better than Darmian, he wasn’t. I’ve seen this story before for many years. Most times it doesn’t work out esp the ones which scoop the awards. Imo, Nsiala if he can get his act together with more focus, and Scotti who has decent technique are most likely to succeed. Otherwise, most of these guys are just regular kids. We spiderman glasses meme these guys too much
We have to make a choice as to whether we back Simic and Gabbia or sign a new CB.
You can’t have both.
You can’t back these guys then undermine them by signing a CB.
Also if we’re to stand a chance we need our first choice CBs starting 40+ games next season (and for the love of god could the next manager not sub our CBs off during games even with the stupid 5 sub rule).
I agree 100%. But we’re going to have a developmental serie c team apparently, so Simic can also go there.
We need a starting CB pairing who will both be at the very least legit contenders for best CBs in the league. And yes, these should play as much games together as injuries allow us. I think Tomori has shown he can consistently be on that level, but we’re still missing a good partner for him – Thiaw unfortunately doesn’t seem to be that guy, and neither is Gabbia (who nobody in our professional staff thought he was good enough for our bench just a year ago)
It’s sad what’s happened to Gabbia but I did call it. I knew once the others came back from injury he’d be discarded. He’s our best CB this calendar year but doens they treated like it