AC Milan have been working extremely well on the mercato this summer and it’s all thanks to Giorgio Furlani, Geoffrey Moncada and Antonio D’Ottavio. The latter, still rather unknown, is the Rossoneri’s new sporting director.
The Rossoneri have completed seven signings thus far and their eighth is imminent, having reached an agreement with Valencia for Yunus Musah. In short, the sale of Sandro Tonali really opened up the mercato for Milan.
At the start of July, Milan announced Antonio D’Ottavio as their new sporting director and some were perhaps surprised that Geoffrey Moncada didn’t get that role. There’s a very logical explanation, though, relating to the regulations of Lega Serie A.
First of all, the role of sporting director cannot be left vacant and Milan were sent an official request to fill the position after Ricky Massara’s departure. As such, they opted to reward the good work of D’Ottavio as the chief scout of the youth sector.
Secondly, between him and Moncada, D’Ottavio was and is the only one qualified to hold the position after graduating from FIGC’s sporting director program with high honours in 2022. Even if Milan had wanted to, therefore, they couldn’t have given it to Moncada.
On our Substack, we told the entire story of D’Ottavio and his journey not just to Milan, but also within the club. Make sure to check it out and all the other bonus content, you can try seven days completely for free! (then $5 a month or $50 a year).
Is that maybe the reason why Massara was hired to be the sporting director, because he had the required qualifications and licensing to hold that position and Maldini didn’t?
It makes sense, also Moncada doesn’t like to be in the centre of attention he likes working on shadows. Probably Moncada will fill the role of Maldini and Ottavio will replace Masara
Extremely well on the mercato? Well, how do you know that?
You still deny that on the paper we have much better squad than last season?
Let me remind you that at this moment, last year, Milan could only signed Divork Origi (FOR 4MIL/YEAR) on a free transfer, and still stuck with garbage players like Bakayoko on the bench for doing absolutely nothing in the last 3 years.
In contrast, we literally just signed 7-8 players across the team, and still about to sign more to come. Oh by the way, I don’t think we will still see useless players on the bench at the end of this window; they are all gonna be out to free up some big ass salaries to balance for our summer transfer spending.
I hope with that, you might have a better idea of how well the mercado has been running so far.
What in your opinion would mean “doing well” in the mercato? Signing who exactly?
Rosoneri, now
NigroNeri
What good work D’Ottavio did as the chief scout of the youth sector?
One of the reasons for sporting directors is they’re supposed to bring (here’s that word again) stability to a club.
The idea was that the sporting director would lay out the grand strategy in terms of player recruitment and the coach would coach the team, and if things didn’t work out the coach be sacked and the project could continue.
It worked for a while until directors (buoyed in by the media and fans) began justifying their existence with constant (here’s that word again) transfers.
This then defeated the entire purpose of the sporting director as there was no longer any stability, and in fact clubs have become less stable over the past 20 years.
Like with most things, we also saw an increase in middle managers, many of whom had never played the game at a high level.
I do wonder whether we’d be better off if managers ran everything. It would force clubs to back a project 100% as the same person would have ownership over each of its parts, and with the manager’s focus being mainly on the pitch, he’d have less time to faff about on the transfer market.
For a real Milanisti, we will very familiar with D’Ottavio name. He spends longer time in AC Milan than Moncada. And our Primavera has pretty good performances and always get pretty good talents too.
And graduate “with honours” from FIGC, it is very good reputation. And this Mercato is his proof : Fast & pretty good deals so far, no dramas, to the point, & what the team needs.
– Sportiello : Free (we need Tatarusanu’s Replacement for backup GK)
– Luka Romero : Free (Most surprising for me, because Lazio let his most potential wonderkid for a free).
– Ruben Loftus-Cheeks, Tijjani Reijnders, Yunus Musah (High-chance official transfer) : Each in range 20M euros, Replacement for Sandro Tonali’s sale. Made our Mid become very strong in depth.
– Samuel Chukwueze for 20M + 8M euros, which he was Real Madrid’s Target.
I think that was good mercato for D’Ottavio. Good way to introduce D’Ottavio’s new Job as Sporting Director.
The man behind the transfer is Furlani. D’Ottavio is only for formality because the position is required by Serie A.
Also, Sportiello and RLC was negotiated by Maldini. Furlani only completed the deal.