Alessandro Costacurta has spoken at length about his former club AC Milan as we approach the start of the 2024-25 Serie A season.
It promises to be another entertaining campaign in the Italian top flight, and while Inter will start as the favourites the recent trend has been that the runaway winners from the previous season have surrendered their title the next year.
Milan, Juventus, Bologna, Fiorentina and Lazio have all changed coaches to embark on a new era which makes the fight for a top five spot arguably more open than ever, at least in recent memory, while at the bottom end there will be a number of clubs just hoping to survive.
Costacurta will be a pundit on Sky again in the upcoming season and he did an interview with Tuttosport that was published this morning in which he previewed the campaign in detail, with PianetaMilan relaying his comments.
Who will win the Scudetto?
“Inter, because they are the strongest team. I certainly don’t think Inter can repeat last year’s path. But now it’s not like it’s become a rule that those who have the Scudetto on their chest do badly the following year.
“Besides, Milan and Napoli didn’t start as favourites after winning the title. Milan because the year before Inter had lost the Scudetto, while Napoli had lost Luciano Spalletti who had been a bit of an architect of that miracle.
“I instead believe that Inter has been the strongest for three or four years and it should surprise us not that they won the last Scudetto, but that they lost a couple.”
Thiago Motta and Paulo Fonseca are the new coaches for Juventus and Milan…
“Neither can afford to start badly. Fonseca because of some doubts that hover over the choices, while expectations for Thiago Motta are very, very high and a false start would raise doubts that I don’t see at the moment.
“Having said that, I believe that Thiago Motta has a job to do that requires more time than Fonseca: I see him as very similar to Stefano Pioli in terms of his approach and methodologies, while Motta has changed everything at Juve.
“For this reason, the one who risks the most is Thiago. It’s right to give both of them a year’s time. The conclusions should be drawn at the end of next season.”
Napoli will also enter a new era under Antonio Conte…
“Antonio is very dangerous. I have a lot of respect for Antonio and I believe that Napoli could be truly fertile ground for him, finding players with the desire to get back into the game and not having commitments in Europe. In a situation like this he can really try to pull off a coup.
“I wasn’t surprised by his yes to Napoli, on the contrary. Antonio has said yes to many teams in his career: he likes to coach. He’s also a bit of a pain in the ass, but he brings results and in his first year he always has a fabulous performance.
“Possible sparks with Aurelio De Laurentiis? Last year the management after Spalletti was wrong, but with Luciano it didn’t seem to me that De Laurentiis had many problems until the end of the story.”
Atalanta have continuity with Gian Piero Gasperini…
“In recent seasons they have raised the quality of the squad a lot and I believe that never like this year can they try to win the Scudetto after having dominated Bayer Leverkusen in that way in the Europa League final. In fact, I say either this year or never.”
