AC Milan owner Gerry Cardinale has decided to perform a full overhaul of the club’s management, with Monday being a monumental day.
La Gazzetta dello Sport describes today as ‘day one of year zero’. Milan are undergoing yet another revolution, but the first under the full direction of Cardinale. After a sleepless night, Milan’s owner has decided to clean house.
Read SempreMilan ad-free and get access to exclusive news. Click here for a free trial!
From today onwards he will be directly involved with Milan, and the statement sent a few hours ago marks the beginning of a new era. His learning curve, so to speak, is over. Cardinale has already begun the work that will lead to a new CEO, head coach and sporting director.
Spoiler alert: the coach could be foreign, and he’ll have to play an attacking style. Like Cesc Fabregas, for example, much less like Antonio Conte. No more 3-5-2, no more defensive football. In truth, Cardinale would have made many changes even before, but missing top four leaves no other choice.
Why Cardinale cleaned house
Giorgio Furlani – who is good with numbers and making them add up – was sacked for failing to build a machine where all the parts worked together in effective collaboration.
This is the key point: redesigning the organisation so that it is a mechanism that works in unison, where the CEO, sporting director, and coach are in sync. This is what didn’t happen this year and this is what most annoyed the owner.
More than the names, what’s important now is building the structure, designing a disciplined one where each role works with the others. Returns from the past (distant or recent) don’t seem to be on the cards, so Paolo Maldini will not come back for now.
He commands Cardinale’s respect and would be an easy solution to appease the angry crowd, but he has shown he doesn’t want to be a team player: he’s considered a one-man show, incompatible with all the other managers.
Adriano Galliani – who Cardinale met a year ago – almost certainly won’t return either, mostly because he still represents a bygone vision of football. The impression is that, in all roles, younger profiles will be chosen.
Massimiliano Allegri also failed, but he would have survived if he had secured Champions League qualification, even though his defensive play and the slump in recent months had already raised eyebrows.
The club’s thinking is that his Milan were playing to avoid defeat rather than to win. Choosing him a year ago was dictated by the desire to bounce back after an eighth-placed finish and quickly close the gap with the other teams, but he isn’t considered the right coach to go again with.
Allegri hasn’t developed his players, and instead some like Christian Pulisic have undergone a mysterious decline. Above all, it’s his mentality – that of looking in the rearview mirror rather than forward – that the coach has been dismissed for.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic is doing what he’s always done: being a consultant for RedBird. He doesn’t work for Milan, but he truly cares about the club. At this stage his advice and footballing ideas will be listened to, but he won’t fill a slot in the club’s organisational chart.
Milan are starting over from scratch, or almost. There are three names on the table for the manager and three for the CEO. A decision will be made soon, in a week or maybe ten days. If Cardinale let others manage for four years, now he’ll be increasingly involved.
really sempre Milan…. we need to ask ourselves why? maybe u got bored from to much winning 🤣🤣
“Allegri hasn’t developed his players, and instead some like Christian Pulisic have undergone a mysterious decline.”
Pulisic’s decline isn’t mysterious. Massively overrated. If a club offers good money he should be sold immediately. He’s only as good as his confidence and when that is lacking he is absolutely atrocious.
The USMNT fans will hopefully leave with him.
Oh yeah, I’m American.
If you think Pulisic is massively overrated, then why would clubs still be willing to pay significant money for him?
Also, he wasn’t the only attacking player who struggled to put up numbers in the second half of the season. Why do you think that was? Maybe it had more to do with Allegri and his system or formation than with the individual players themselves.
Or is it simply that you just don’t like Pulisic? I’m honestly not sure what to make of your last comments.
Been reading along for a few years now, love what you guys do for the most part. That being said, have you guys been paid by Cardinale all of a sudden??
“He commands Cardinale’s respect and would be an easy solution to appease the angry crowd, but he has shown he doesn’t want to be a team player: he’s considered a one-man show, incompatible with all the other managers.”
The guy who made everything and everyone click during the scudetto run doesn’t know how to work together. OK. This post is embarrassing.
As if this part was any better:
“Zlatan Ibrahimovic is doing what he’s always done: being a consultant for RedBird. He doesn’t work for Milan, but he truly cares about the club. At this stage his advice and footballing ideas will be listened to, but he won’t fill a slot in the club’s organisational chart.”
Iznogoud cares about the club?! He doesn’t care!
It’s a bit ironic isn’t it? When there was a CEO who let Maldini make the footballing decisions (Gazidis) and just ran the business it all seemed to work quite well.
When there was a CEO who thought he should be involved in the mercato and sporting side (Furlani) all of a sudden Maldini isn’t a team player.
yall forget the gazidis and ragnick episode
Wild accusation that Maldini isn’t a team player. He definitely is. He even was a main reason some players sign and extend their contract.
Who isn’t a team player is Ibra. He even gave advice contradictory to the coach.
Maldini is 1Man show & Z is competent advisor + the glue of Milan? really?
let’s talk about history, 1st compare M tropies w/ Z as player & non-player, 2nd who’s famous as the symbol of loyality & who’s the symbol of mercenary
Maldini a one man show? You guys don’t have to get click-baity
“Are you referring to the market? Maldini replied: “It’s far from the truth that Massara and I didn’t share objectives and strategies. I never had, nor wanted, signing power: not even for loans. Every purchase was approved by the CEO and ownership. We chose the players; sometimes the budget disappeared. Interference in sporting decisions, affecting financial balance, is normal. It’s unjust to accuse us of not sharing. Many meetings were needed for Ibrahimovic.” (The irony)
If he had his way, he’d “Year Zero” every summer.