AC MILAN - THE BIG DOWNFALL. Former European n Italian Champions, Milan have been struggling to beat such teams that in previous seasons, there wouldn’t ve been a problm, n Juventus at the top r showing no mercy against any team, players are frightened to play Juve whilst theyre in such incredible form. At one stage, Milan were only 4 points off the feared relegation places. Even in their glory years of mid 2000s Milan had accumulated massive debts n an ageing squad. They were da footballing equivilant of the western world... no money and too many old people! It was a disaster waiting to happen. Bt da chief reason for their dramatic fall frm grace hs been pathetic admnstration n of course Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi’s political party, then called Forza Italia, a famous soccer slogan, rose with his team. He took on, and shamelessly outspent, everyone, even the Agnelli family at Juventus. And the one thing that should not be taken away from Silvio Berlusconi is that he knew how to build a team and how to entrust it to coaches who by pleasing him enthralled millions of Italians. Indeed, more than Italians. The Milan team financed by Berlusconi went above and beyond the relatively easy satisfaction that Italy gained from winning. In a word, Milan entertained. Now, it suffers. The great Berlusconi sell-off started three years ago, when Milan received an offer from Real Madrid for the playmaker Kaká. The Brazilian did not want to go, in fact he cried openly at being sold like an expensive trinket from the place he called his sporting home. Berlusconi’s chief soccer administrator, Adriano Galliani, described it as an offer Milan could not afford to turn down, a good cover story for Milans ever increasing debt dat they hd to pay off. But more followed wch exposed Milans pathetic Managemnt of not having a backup plan or a plan for the future - The generation of Filippo Inzaghi, Alessandro Nesta, Clarence Seedorf n Andrea Pirlo was ending. The young Brazilian Alexandre Pato was suffering recurrent injuries. And the final cuts, the final indignities, came this last summer when the goal scorer Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the defender Thiago Silva departed for Paris Saint-Germain. They went, of course, because Paris, backed by its Qatari investor, made more offers that Milan could refuse. Worse, they went because Carlo Ancelotti, who had been both a fine player and successful coach for Milan, is now the head coach at P.S.G. It says much about Serie A, and not only about Berlusconi’s fall, that Paris has also signed #Marco Verratti, the young midfielder who everyone deems to be the closest thing Italy possesses to a reincarnation of Andrea Pirlo’s mastery. Verratti is almost the same age as El Shaarawy, but they are leagues apart and no one could have foreseen the French league’s enticing away Serie A’s jewels before now.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 23:29:31 +0000
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