AC Milan’s strategy in recent transfer windows has been trying to find gems that they can develop into top players, and they have had plenty of success in France.
TMW recall how Rafael Leao, Pierre Kalulu and Mike Maignan are all now centrepieces of the Rossoneri’s project and they arrived from France, while there is also Fode Ballo-Touré who came from Ligue 1 plus Olivier Giroud, Theo Hernandez, Franck Kessie and others who speak the language due to their origins.
Why are Milan so happy to fish in France? It is a choice that has several explanations and the first is that Geoffrey Moncada has been leading the scouting of the club since 2018. Given that he worked for Monaco for years, he has familiarity with Ligue 1 and its surroundings.
In addition to that, France represents a market with an unparalleled quality-price ratio. In 2019, Ligue 1 was in last place among the ‘top five’ European leagues when looking at the average salaries of its players even with PSG in the league.
Milan will continue to look at France because of their knowledge and the economic factor, but they will not shop there exclusively because the Sandro Tonali and Ismael Bennacer operations show that there is quality available in England while Alexis Saelemaekers and Jens Petter Hauge arrived from Belgium and Norway respectively.
It must be noted though that Ligue 1 remains a particularly attractive hunting ground also for the future of Milan, given that Sven Botman and Renato Sanches are at Lille and are concrete targets.
