The AC Milan squad would rather have seen Atalanta emerge victorious in last night’s Coppa Italia final, according to one journalist.
Speaking on Sky Italia (via MilanNews), Peppe di Stefano spoke about the situation of the Rossoneri in view of the match against Atalanta in which they know they must win in order to be guaranteed of a spot in the top four.
He revealed that CEO Ivan Gazidis was at Milanello today in addition to Paolo Maldini and Ricky Massara, and the management is close to the team. There are some numbers that represent and tell the story of the Rossoneri’s experience as the squad combined have 218 appearances in the Champions League, with 120 for Ibrahimovic, 60 for Mandzukic and the rest of the team has 38. Only six have played in the Champions League before and this shows how inexperienced the team is.
He adds that being inexperienced is not always a bad thing as there was no fear of failure in the 3-0 win over Juventus for example. At Milanello they would have preferred to have Atalanta winning a trophy last night, which would have made Sunday’s result and a second-placed finish less important.
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I would say the opposite. Now that Juventus took the Coppa from Atalanta, they won’t be sorry if Juve doesn’t make it to the final four. I think Atalanta – Milan will be a draw, but Bologna – Juventus will be a draw as well. Atalanta finishes in third place and Milan in fourth. I don’t think Agnelli is going to offer Ceferin the chance to kick him out of the CL because of ESL and now that they have the Coppa their season isn’t completely lost. CR7 will leave anyway so the financial hit won’t be that hard for Juventus and they’re going to miss European football at least for 1 year anyway, so now is the best time.
That was a daring prediction.
Atalanta’s defeat in the Coppa Italia seems more because Gasperini’s concentration is prioritized on the last match of Serie A. The composition of the players that are applied looks different from keeping Ilicic, Pasalic or Muriel. With a different composition, the players who are used to playing in the starting 11 are unlikely to experience physical problems when they face Milan at the end of tomorrow’s competition. And this must be Milan’s concern.