One of the stars of the American tour so far has been Mattia Liberali, the 17-year-old midfielder, and AC Milan must plan his future as interest rises in his potential.
Before diving into information, it is vital to remind ourselves that pre-season is not the truest measure of a player’s ability, after all, it is a chance to test new tactics and raise fitness levels. However, we can get an understanding of certain things, and that is what is happening with Liberali.
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In both games of the American tour so far, Milan have faced a weakened XI compared to what they may face in a European clash between the same sides – but they have fielded elevens with similar composition themselves.
Regardless of this fact, we can still see the ability of some players shining through, and even though the teams may be younger, seeing a 17-year-old shine against players in his age group or above, is massively impressive, and displays a level of talent that must be looked into.
Following the first two games of the tour, Sky (via Radio Rossonera) have reported that Paulo Fonseca is ‘convincing himself’ to keep Liberali around the first team squad, and perhaps, he will play with the Futuro squad primarily, but he could be in the first team picture.
However, Fonseca is not the only one to identify him as a talent after recent fixtures, and the report states that big clubs are being attracted. A few clubs have enquired about the youngster – whose case is similar to Francesco Camarda’s, according to the report – but Barcelona are the standout interested party.
With Pusilic also playing n10 and most likely Reijnders I think this makes sense. Young, Italian, showed great effort, confidence, and determination with the other 2 playing that position as well even less pressure should come to this Milanista and I think he and Torriani should be given space.
I would even suggest Nasti for Jovic, as it would give more playtime to Okafor who would be losing a lot of minutes if Saelemakers is kept, and I think he will be.
17yo kid is gonna play in futuro. That’s why they made it. Even if we don’t sign lazar there is puli, tijani and benacer for AM.
And RLC.
Nope. Not him. He’s a log there.
He scored 10 goals last season mostly from there.
Yes but was losing the ball and go quite dormant on many many games. N10 is the one who gives you the rhythm during the game, not sleep 85min then scores one goal
@ Tom
He wasn’t losing the ball he actually did a good job holding it up…
He was probably our 2nd most successful signing after Pulisic but people seem to prefer the likes of Adli and Reijnders who took too many touches and didn’t really do anything….
People really aren’t into actual tangible results around here, are they?
yes he did. And lets say that is 10 somewhat ok games he had, then you had the other 29 games when he did nothing or very little..
Overall Ruben had around 5-6 good games out of 39 and his ratings are heavily inflated, think what you want about that, most fans know its the truth
Goals are not everything. He scored those goals in 4or5 games where we were trashing some low level teams. Also good number of those goals came from corners and rebounds, nothing really with him playing like AM or scoring some R.Kaka like goals. In fact Pioli moved him in the box cause he was doing bad as a AM. As other has pointed out he is missing for 85min in games. We need real AM who can contribute and not someone who can score once in a blue moon against some low level teams.
In a congested box even Jovic and Okafor were scoring…
RLC’s positioning was pretty good but so many times he carried the ball forward and messed up the final pass. he’s B2B, not a 10.
I only really go for actual results….I find it’s a good way of minimising subjective opinions which seem to be very popular around here.
RLC actually delivered.
The others, not so much.
Sure he did. Thats why we are looking for new midfielders this summer…
actual results against what requirements? How do you understand the role of each player within a system and then within a game?
@ flyingturtle
Oh so your argument is that the club’s transfers make any sense.
Righto.
I think he should be part of the Senior team let take lesson from players like messi,Lamine Yamal and other young stars who performed at the Senior level.
Barcelona? Don’t know why they would be interested as they have a superior youth squad compared to us also they still have the small matter of 1.6 billion debt along with over 80 convictions of cheating do they not?
Why does Barcelona have a superior youth squad?
Are they genetically engineered to be superior?
Or are they just given games and proper development?
I really don’t understand how so many people just accept that there are no good players in a country of 60m people that has won the World Cup four times.
Barcelona has a superior youth squad the same way certain schools produce superior students.
It’s about their system, training methods, football philosophy.
Also, their youth players get to play for Barcelona B team that has been around since 1970, while Milan is about to have their B team for the first time in 2024. Juventus and Atalanta introduced theirs over the last few years. Barcelona is 50 year ahead of Italian clubs in that aspect. Real Madrid started theirs even earlier.
So yeah, barca and Real Madrid have superior youth squads.
So you accept that the ‘system, training methods, football philosophy’ makes a difference…
The Barca B team has been around since the 1970 but Italy have been winning World Cups since the 1930s so what changed in, say, the past 15 years?
Why didn’t Italian teams need B teams before?
“Or are they just given games and proper development?”
This is what you said. Their players get playing time and development in their B teams. Milan just started theirs.
And over the last 20 something years Spanish NTs and Spanish teams dominate European football.
But you keep being stuck on the old days.
Italy has been winning World cups since the 1930’s!?
Ha ha ha yeah Italy has won 4 WC of which 2 were in the 1930’s. So in the last 90 years Italy has won 2 world cups. But you are out here talking like Italy is winning 1 each decade.
But we know you have hard time accepting tge truth and can’t wait to tell us about the bum ass ex Milan players that play fringe roles at other clubs. Tell us about Acerbi again.
Remember to breath….
I spend a little bit of time around here questioning some of the transfers we make and why the first team squad needs to be bigger than, erm, Barcelona’s…
Now one thing that has changed in the past, say, 15 years (not to dwell on the past) in Serie A is that Serie A has had more transfers than the other top leagues especially Spain.
Serie A first team squads have also ballooned in size regularly reaching the high 20s.
Real and Barca have generally kept tighter squads of about 23 players which have included their youth team players, and they have focused on signing 2-3 targeted signings mostly in the summer (they rarely sign players midseason and rarely get players on loan etc).
They’ve spent a bit but so have we. We’ve spent over billion in 10 years and have one Scudetto to show for it.
And we keep making the same mistakes.
We sign multiple players in the same position (2 CFs for some reason when we have about 3 youth players trying to break through in that position), we’re off trying to sign an AM apparently despite the performances that Liberali, we have done Gabbia out of job by signing another CB (instead of supporting him by signing a DM) and we hate the club captain who came from our youth team.
Now do you really think some fancy B Team (playing in Serie C) is going to fix that?
Or do you maybe want to admit that the excessive number of transfers and squad sizes might be an issue?
Perhaps our Liberali can turn to how Leny Yoro turns out to be at Lille where Fonseca managed.
Safe to say our youths future are in better hands 😊
One misstep with these players and it could all wrong.
It’s on a knife edge.
So the management better start thinking very carefully about how to give them the best chance to succeed.
The one who always says that player has no age is Fonseca. So let’s see if he can put his money where his mouth is.
No liberali not for sale so I presumed we give a liberali a chance and also integrate rejoinder as a central midfield because that’s his best choice as for pulisic he remains Acmilan attacking midfield no 10
Italy won two world cups in the 30’s on the backs of South Americans, the oriundo.