AC Milan’s mission on Friday night is simple: to have a weekend spent comfortably sitting on the couch, watching the other games knowing top spot is secured.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) report this morning, Massimiliano Allegri brought Milan back to being sole leaders of Serie A two years since the last time, but he’s not stopping and is aiming for a first ‘escape’ this evening.
He doesn’t want to call it breaking away, but it would still be ‘an important signal’ to the league. Milan have so far lost only in their opening game, at home to Cremonese, and since then they’ve collected six wins and a draw across all competitions.
No one has done better, which is why Mike Maignan and his teammates are looking down on the others. Not playing in European competition is an advantage that the current Italian coach with the most Scudetto titles is capitalising on.
All this is despite the injuries that the recent international break has left him with. Adrien Rabiot, Christian Pulisic, Pervis Estupinan and Ruben Loftus-Cheek will be out, while Ardon Jashari is still recovering, and the young forward Balentien has some issues and will miss out too.
Christopher Nkunku, however, is back after being sidelined on Sunday with a sore toe. The Frenchman’s recovery isn’t a trivial one, as – despite his sub-par physical condition – it allows Max to use Santi Gimenez and Rafael Leao from the start.
The two made the difference in the second half against Fiorentina and will be on the attack from minute one tonight against Pisa, who are bottom of the table along with Fiorentina and Genoa.
Preaching calm
The key at Milanello is not to think about the Scudetto or being top at the moment. Allegri makes no exceptions to this and never misses an opportunity to reiterate the concept to the group.
The club are completely aligned with the thinking of their coach, who has transformed an insecure squad incapable of avoiding defensive errors into a rock-solid group that concedes little at the back.
Today, the trio in front of Maignan will be changed for the first time in the league, with Koni De Winter replacing Fikayo Tomori to allow the Englishman to rest before the upcoming matches against Atalanta and Roma.
Matteo Gabbia and Strahinja Pavlovic, however, will remain in place with the goal of keeping a fifth clean sheet in the first eight Serie A games. It’s not just a question of numbers: Max has been repeating for years that in Italy, the Scudetto is won by the team that concedes the fewest goals.
Even after the 3-0 win against Udinese, when he was in the press box due to suspension, he punched his desk at the slightest distraction from his team on the pitch. The fans and management loved these scenes.
The CEO Giorgio Furlani and sporting director Igli Tare, who were at Milanello yesterday for lunch with him, consider Allegri the most important signing of the summer, the one that changed Milan’s fortunes.
A battle of veterans
Allegri hopes tonight that Leao continues to score like he did against Fiorentina and that Gimenez breaks his duck in the league. Above all, however, he expects another stellar performance from Luka Modric, who will face another super ‘old man’ in Serie A: Raul Albiol.
The two know each other very well. The Croatian, born on 9 September 1985, will face the Spanish defender who is just five days older than him and who made his league debut for the Nerazzzuri last week against Verona.
The two shared the Real Madrid dressing room in the 2012-13 season, Luka’s first in white and Raul’s last with Los Blancos. Now they meet again as opponents in Italy, albeit with decidedly different objectives.
Modric has chosen Milan, the team he supported as a child, to continue winning. Albiol has found an intriguing new challenge in Pisa and wants to help them survive.
