The two first started working together in the 2010-11 season, when Allegri took over the Rossoneri from Leonardo and Ibrahimovic joined from Barcelona. It was a successful first year, of course, as they ended up lifting the Scudetto and then clinched the Supercoppa Italiana a few months later too.
However, the 2011-12 season somewhat failed to live up to expectations with a second-place finish in the league. That is also when cracks started to appear in the Allegri-Ibrahimovic relationship, as revealed by the latter and some of his teammates (who also questioned the coach).
With Milan, we had lost 3-0 to Arsenal in the Champions League and he was all happy. It’s true that we went through, but there was nothing to laugh about, and I pointed it out to him.
“He told me to think about myself, that I played badly. I replied that he did badly because he had brought two goalkeepers on the bench,” Ibrahimovic said in 2021 (via Football Italia).
Gianluca Zambrotta (former Milan full-back) and Adriano Galliani (former CEO) have also spoken about the incident in the past, stating that the two nearly ended up in a fight.
It was a terrible game, everybody was happy after the match, but when we entered the locker room, Ibra was screaming like a madman.
“He almost beat Allegri up because he had brought two goalkeepers for the bench. Ibra is never happy. He is never satisfied,” Galliani stated.
“I didn’t have problems with Allegri the first year, but in the second, we lost the Scudetto due to mismanagement of the locker room.
“One time, after losing 3-0 to Arsenal, Allegri said: ‘Well done lads, it doesn’t matter.’ That wasn’t a great move. Ibra was furious and they almost got into a fight in the locker room,” Zambrotta stated (via Football Italia).
