No Champions League football next season, but there is still light at the end of the tunnel for AC Milan…
Gone are the days when AC Milan was averaging only 8 to 15 thousand season tickets a year, the fans weren’t showing up for the games, and even the Curva Sud had held a banner saying ‘Basta!’, which translates to ‘Enough!’.
In April of 2017, a Chinese businessman named Li Yonghong acquired the club and hired the likes of Massimo Mirabelli and Marco Fassone. The duo surprised all of Europe with a uniquely extravagant transfer campaign the following summer.
After six long years, the Milanisti finally had a season to look up to. The whole team was shaken, and mixed with nine new individuals. Besides the likes of Bonaventura, Suso, Abate and some of the young guns like Locatelli, Cutrone and Calabria, no one deserved to stay, and no one did.
With only one loss coming from the first ten competitive games, drawing a conclusion on this squad was still a slippery slope. Lazio, being the only tough opponent among the rest, quite frankly, ran riot against Milan.
Vincenzo Montella, after choosing nine new players to add to the Rossoneri squad, failed miserably in the first half of the season, grabbing only one more point compared to the 16/17 Serie A campaign. Alarmed my Montella’s inability to deliver, club legend Gennaro Gattuso was brought in as an interim manager until a suitable replacement was to be found.
The fans, despite having an everlasting affection for Gattuso from his days as a player, were very sceptical at first. Against all odds though, Gattuso managed to put Milan back in contention for European qualification after instilling some much needed ‘Grinta’ into this sleeping Italian powerhouse. He just recently signed a three-year extension, a decision that has received mixed reactions from the fans.
Gennaro Gattuso: Only Juventus (31) have picked up more points than Gennaro Gattuso's AC Milan side (26) in 2018 — He's certainly earned that new deal!https://t.co/x7C9pK8Ce8 pic.twitter.com/GhkoCxLRB0
— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) April 6, 2018
After being unbeaten for almost the first three months of 2018, Milan suffered a rough spell of six games without a win. The drought started with Arsenal knocking Milan out of the Europa League and Juventus defeating them 3-1 in Turin.
It’s clear that with the purchase of a whole new team, the squad needs a lot of chemistry, stamina and most importantly, depth. In successive articles, we will get to what the squad lacks and what is needed this coming summer.
Even though the fans haven’t witnessed the season they had hoped for after last summer’s huge spending spree and the management is still in a little bit of disarray (speculations of Mirabelli to be fired), there are still things to look forward to.
The squad is new and the hunger is evident. The San Siro is starting to fill up like the good old days. They’ve reached the final of the Coppa Italia, which will be played on May 9th against Juventus. The biggest disappointment is that Milan is still competing for the Europa League, but let’s not forget that the squad is new and the Serie A is a tough league.
Only time will tell, but from the looks of it, AC Milan are surely on their way back up from almost seven years of disappointment.