AC Milan: the rebirth of a historic team

feap86 (25)in #sports • 7 years ago (edited)

It seems that for AC Milan the years of mediocre results have come to an end. The sale of the team by Silvio Berlusconi (29 trophies in 30 years, most in history) to the Chinese Li Yonghong gives new air for Milan to return to be one of the best of the world. Li along with Marco Fassone and Massimiliano Mirabelli, began this new era of the team drawing plans both in the sport area, where they hope that in a relatively short time Milan returns to competitive football; as well as commercial and financial, making China and Asia in general (where there are many Milan supporters) the source of new income, to make future investment sustainable.

The new capitals coming from China have allowed to make a almost total change of the squad, rising notably the level of the team with the new players, and that along to the confidence given to Vincenzo Montella guarantees a continuity in the team.

The signing strategy has been very aggressive, so fast and effective has been that by the beginning of July 70% of the signings were already closed, according to Fassone. I at least have not seen anything similar since the beginning of the Ancelotti era more than 15 years ago. It is true that Fassone and Mirabelli (F&M) had been working on it for months, but the execution from the moment they took the team has been very good. Milan is today a totally new team, and the prospects are very positive. So far 9 signings, which the most important so far has been Bonucci, a signing that at least for me was very surprising.

Of the players who were already on the squad, I think that of all those who played better, they majority reamined which is good, since despite Deulofeu (unfortunate) and Bacca (positive) leaving, the rest of the good players stayed. Also, F&M showed a lot of ability managing the Donnaruma renewal, where despite the sabotage of the disaster that is Mino Raiola, at the end Gigio, who will probably be the best goalkeeper in the world in a few years, stays on the team. He made a wise decision.

As for the prospects for the 2017/2018 season, for me it depends a lot on how the signings finish and who is finally the center forward that will arrive: Belotti, Aubameyang or Kalinic. But assuming that a "9" is added to the team and nothing else happens, Milan should:

A) Serie A: finish in the top 3 (probably 2nd or 3rd), guaranteeing entry to the Champions League 2018/2019.

B) Europa League: reach at least the quater-finals.

C) Coppa Italia: to reach at least the semi-finals.

But as I said, this is very contingent on which players are joining the squad in the coming days before the market closes. In any case, already with the current squad, all of us, AC Milan followers, that suffered during the years of austerity, begin to see that apparently a new stage with many victories and trophies is ahead of us. That is, Milan can once again be one of the great teams in the world. Milan can be Milan again.