AC Milan are in a period of great uncertainty but from it emerges great opportunity too, with a number of crucial decisions to come soon.
La Gazzetta dello Sport recall the turbulent last few days at Milan, symbolised by the saga surrounding Sergio Conceicao’s spokesperson leaking complaints to the media, which were then branded lies by the coach and he threatened legal action. In short, anything can happen this season.
By now we are well beyond Murphy’s Law. Aside from the financial aspect – which in any case in the medium term will have to deal with the lack of revenue from the next Champions League – there is no area in which the club can consider itself calm and well-set.
It is also for this reason – in addition to personal work-related reasons – that the CEO Giorgio Furlani flew out to meet Gerry Cardinale in the last few days, preferring a face-to-face meeting rather than the usual call.
Milan seem fragmented at present and unclear in their future vision, all while there are still two and a half months to go until the end of the season. It means that everything has fallen apart very quickly.
To restore convergence it will be necessary to follow a fixed path, without any room for deviation. The very first aspect to resolve the chaos is to effectively clarify internal balances and power relations.
Furlani asked Cardinale for affirmation this, returning to Milan with the confirmation of his role in the management. That is, a CEO with not only the power to sign in bureaucratic terms, but also decision-making, also in the sporting area.
This is not news in the strict sense, but it was evidently necessary to reiterate it in front of the other men who frequent the control room. When things don’t work, the results don’t arrive and the sky is falling in, sometimes the balances risk being upset.
It happens in the dressing room with the players – the group fragments, some start to go their own way, evil rumours emerge etc. – it can also happen in the management environment.
While waiting for the management to resolve any internal disputes in the pursuit of common goals, the second station that Milan must act on is the sporting director, which then decides the head coach and transfer strategy.
Therefore, the first move is necessarily to identify the most suitable director for the project. It is a bizarre situation, because it is a figure that has been missing for almost two years and the lack has been quite evident not only in recent times.
Now the club are taking cover and has moved from the collegial management of the sporting area to the technical director Geoffrey Moncada, who reiterated an obvious fact before the Lecce game: “In football the role of sporting director is important.”
RedBird, by philosophy, do not like to change during the season but at a certain point they found themselves forced. That’s not all: in the absence of a decisive turning point in results in this last part of the season, Conceiçao could also be shown the door early.
It also seems fairly certain that the Portuguese’s chances of staying next year are at this moment just above zero. There hasn’t been enough security – both in results and in management of the squad – for the club to think about proceeding.
A sporting director will come first, then a new coach, and after that it will be necessary to more or less heavily tweak the roster. There are players who are not at the end of their contracts but at the end of their cycle, loans whose fate is still to be understood, players who will return and signings to be made.
Being ninth place in the table – even if it doesn’t reflect in any way the value and quality of the team – certifies the need to change something. All this while this season will be remembered as that of the big names punished (by two coaches, which must mean something) for stolen penalties, blatant insubordinations and other incidents.
The Champions League has been lost in an embarrassing way, both in the current edition (defeat to Feyenoord) and qualifying for the next edition. Finding yourself out of the running for the 2025-26 UCL at the beginning of March is unacceptable.
Finally, the stadium: after the confusion about San Donato versus San Siro, after five years lost in discussions and controversies, the clubs are back to square one and they have opted to go with a joint project again.
There is a fair amount of chaos in the world of Milan, with one advantage: by starting to get to work now, we can get to the summer with a good part of the work already done.
