The big story going into this match, of course is the addition of the €11m man, Alessandro Matri. Not only because Milan dropped that kind of cash on a backup to Pazzini for two months, but because it reunites Coach Allegri with one of his favorite players when they were both at… you guessed it, Cagliari. Even better that Matri returns to his roots, as a former Milan youth product. So facing off against the club that launched both their bromance and both of their careers is the perfect start for their next journey. Reunited.
It’s happened before. They’ve lied to us, sold players after they promised they wouldn’t. Bought players when they said they wouldn’t. But this time is different. This time they fed us stories about a plan. About Financial Fair Play (FFP). About believing in youth. About buying only players age 23 years or younger. About promoting players from the youth sector to the first team. About a smaller squad size. And about sustainability. Buy season tickets, they said. Support the club unquestioningly. Buy jerseys and line the pockets of those who betray you. Trust, they said. Oddly enough, when someone tells you to trust, they are probably lying. Milan management are lying. Again. Duplicity.
In a game where everything was on the line, for once, Milan left nothing to chance. After the anxiety felt worldwide for weeks or even months, our boys came through in a big way and proved their Champions League worth at home at the San Siro in front of 50,000 fans. They weren’t perfect, there were errors, but they did keep a clean sheet, and silenced the PSV fans in the best way possible: with 3 goals. Decisive.
Eleven hungry lions. Eleven “little kids”. Winner takes all.
It’s been another rough start already for Milan and many Milan fans are sad, disillusioned, or worse. And with good reason. After a hopeful summer, we seem to be doing the same old things again, chasing ghosts. But with any luck tomorrow we will find redemption. If not, it’s going to be Champions League Game Over this season.
It’s not surprising that Milan would underperform in their opening match. Despite the fact that the race for the Scudetto started today, Allegri is notorious for his slow starts. Add to that thehistory of our two clubs, and it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that Verona came out on top. And if points were given for a sense of urgency and the desire to win, the score would have been even more decisive. Well done, Verona. But for Milan, it’s just the same old story with Allegri.
If you are not familiar with Milan history, you may think that Milan are simply meeting a newly promoted team on Saturday. But this match is so very much more than that. After an 11 year absence in Serie A, Hellas Verona are back, and so is a bitter rivalry. Verona fans will boastfully remind Milan fans how Milan lost two Scudetti at the Bentegodi. But this rivalry has a newer twist, too. Verona is the city Mario Balotelli was most often racially abused in last year by other teams fans when he wasn’t even in the stadium. And Hellas Verona fans notoriously put Juventus fans to shame when it comes to the racial abuse of players, so this matchup has all eyes on the Milan squad, the opposing fans, and the disciplinary committee. You could say that Milan are literally going to Hell…as.
The new season is always filled with anticipation, the possibilities unwritten. Until now. Because to curb your jitters ahead of Saturday’s opening match, we are asking you to actually write some possibilities for us. And because we like you, we’ve gone first. You’re welcome.
Van Bommel tried to warn Milan. He said PSV were a young, quick team with a lot of firepower. So Allegri did the same thing he’s always done. Stick his head in the sand, and lined up his slow, defensive midfield and his midfielder-come-striker who boasted the most failed shots in Serie A last season. So it shouldn’t have surprised me when PSV came out on fire. They attacked the game with pace and machine gun-like shooting. Milan were essentially thrown into the fire.
If only there were points for successful orbit launches.
Many have pointed out the fact that the last time we took the “road less traveled by” via the qualification round, we ended up winning the whole thing. But I don’t put much faith in magic repeating itself. Frankly, I just hope that this road takes us to the same destination as “the road not taken”: the Champions League Group Stage.
Milanello has a hero, it is the almighty Euro. You see, whenever a player sustains a long term injury during the transfer market, all the doctors at Milan Lab have to do is go to the top of the roof and flip on the Euro Signal™. The Euro Signal™ tells Galliani that a player is down, and then he can jump into his mercato mobile and fight injuries the only way he knows how: by buying new players. And so instead of our squad shrinking, it grows, teeming like the criminals on the streets of Gotham City. And thus, The Wage Bill Rises.
Podcast: Are We There Yet?
Often we look around for the very best option, looking near and far for the right person, never realizing that person is right under our very noses. But sometimes, circumstances dictate that we don’t even have time to look near or far, and thus naturally find the most obvious answer. This seems to be the case with our emergency defender purchase this summer, when from diagnosis of Bonera’s fractured kneecap to the loan deal of his replacement took less than 48 hours. But I am really starting to think that our dire need for a defender was a blessing in disguise, since we were forced to look at the defender next door.
Champions League Qualifying Draw: Dreams or Nightmares?
As soon as it was clear we would not directly qualify for the Champions League Group Stage last season, I started to have Champions League-themed nightmares. What if we didn’t even make the third place qualifying spot? What if we got the qualifying spot, but drew a much better team and didn’t qualify? Or even worse, what if we drew a team that was poor, but still managed to beat us? Well in less than three weeks, we’ll see if it was my dreams or my nightmares that came true, but today my fears were faced as we found out who our opponent will be for the qualifications.
Warning: This may be the least classy review I have ever written. I claim insanity by virtue of geographical location, and also being forced to listen to Eric Wynalda and friends, so therefore should be absolved of your judgment.
I must confess that I have never liked Major League Soccer (MLS). As much as I was excited to have football start up again in America, as a relatively new football fan when the league started, even I noticed the oceans of difference in the level of play between Serie A and the MLS. It’s no wonder that players from Europe and elsewhere look at it as a retirement league. Add to that the Americanization of the league with the draft and salary cap, etc., and the ridiculous fans, most of which could not even figure out the difference between a corner kick and a goal kick, let alone explain the offside rule, and I became even more jaded. So when the LA Galaxy took advantage of a lackadaisical Juventus side in the semifinal match of the ICC tournament, a game that was my son’s first professional football match, the only thing I wanted was vengeance.
Last year, we took out the reigning Champions League Champions in a resounding 1-0 defeat in a preseason friendly in the US. So it is not surprising that they would want to avenge the horrible atrocity that is losing a summer preseason friendly tonight. And avenge they did. Either that, or they wanted to help us avoid the emotional trauma of facing off against our beloved Ancelotti and Kaká, now both of Real Madrid, in the final game. Whichever way it was, the scoreline does not tell the full story on this one. Because payback is a friendly.
We are no strangers to this foe. Last year, about a week earlier in the summer, we faced Chelsea in Miami. It was a match we won, too. And at that time, they were the reigning Champions League champions. It wasn’t our best effort, as many summer friendlies go. But we won.Thanks to the superhero efforts and singular goal of one Urby Emanuelson. Legend.
I talked about it in my previous post, but Allegri is quick to blame the youth when things go wrong. After complaining about it again postmatch yesterday, for some reason, he lined up a brilliant young side today. Only his plan backfired. They played much, much better than the other lineups we’ve seen so far in these friendlies. That’s right, a starting lineup with six players 20 or younger, and a total average squad age of 22.8 played well together, linking up and creating chances, much prettier football than we’ve seen otherwise. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it sure was refreshing. In fact if feels as if we found the fountain of youth.