What Next For Milan?

Milan defeated fallen giants Juven­tus 3–0 in a match with no con­se­quence to the Serie A title race yet it served as the proper farewell for coach Leonardo who man­aged to do well despite the lack of depth in the squad and the lim­ited resources.

The Rossoneri only spent on Klaas-Jan Hunte­laar who turned out to be a flop and was unim­pres­sive forc­ing Leonardo to con­fine the Dutch­man to the bench and use Alexan­dre Pato and Marco Bor­riello as his start­ing duo in attack. Unfor­tu­nately injuries had a neg­a­tive effect on Milan’s sea­son with Pato miss­ing a chunk of the sea­son due to injury along with centre-back Alessan­dro Nesta who has been sorely missed in recent weeks.

The lack of alter­na­tives to both Pato and Nesta meant the Rossoneri had no chance to com­pete for the Serie A title and this was evi­dent as the club’s progress was halted in recent weeks with defeats against both Sam­p­do­ria and Palermo. Defeat­ing Juve is always a pos­i­tive thing and a wel­come sign but the cur­rent Bian­coneri play­ers are a shadow of the feared side in the mid 1990s and early 2000s.

Leonardo proved he can remain calm and make the right deci­sions despite the tremen­dous pres­sure heaped upon him and the con­stant crit­i­cism from pres­i­dent Sil­vio Berlus­coni. The tifosi gave the Brazil­ian coach a tremen­dous farewell as they chanted his name and held ban­ners to thank him for his efforts. Milan’s man­age­ment has com­mit­ted a big mis­take by let­ting the Brazil­ian leave as he has been part of the club for over a decade in mul­ti­ple roles and has helped bring in some of the brighter Brazil­ian tal­ent to Milanello. With every Milan defeat one could see how that affected Leonardo who would cheer on with every goal scored by the Rossoneri through­out the season.

Milan will also need to replace not just the out­go­ing coach but also some of the vet­er­ans who are near­ing retire­ment and must address the sta­tus of Hunte­laar. The Dutch­man will be best served if he is sold and that can bring in some much needed funds which can be used to bring another qual­ity attacker who can hope­fully adapt to life with the Rossoneri and meet expec­ta­tions. The Rossoneri are in des­per­ate need of at least one full-back con­sid­er­ing Gian­luca Zam­brotta and Mas­simo Oddo are no longer capa­ble of prop­erly ful­fill­ing their role in that position.

In mid­field Gen­naro Gat­tuso must be replaced and it is clear French­man Math­ieu Flamini is not the ideal solu­tion so the club ought to bring in a defen­sive mid­fielder to rein­force the squad. Finally, the biggest con­cern will be the sta­tus of Brazil­ian duo Pato and Ronald­inho. Pato has been linked with a move to the Eng­land Pre­mier League while Ronald­inho has had his best sea­son in Serie A and was one of the key play­ers behind Milan’s abil­ity to end the sea­son in third place. Ronald­inho will fin­ish the sea­son as Serie A’s top assist man and has man­aged to find the net four times in two matches against the Bian­coneri. He showed flashes of bril­liance in sev­eral matches this sea­son and while he has yet to return to his Barcelona form, the Brazil­ian man­aged to end the sea­son on a high and pro­duced a series of con­vinc­ing per­for­mances dur­ing this cam­paign which mer­ited a recall to the Brazil­ian squad headed to South Africa 2010.

The sum­mer will be a cru­cial period for the club to make the nec­es­sary adjust­ments and bring in a qual­i­fied coach. The rumours point to either Mauro Tas­sotti or Fil­ippo Galli tak­ing over and while this means the Rossoneri will look for their for­mer play­ers to lead the line, this move might back­fire as not every for­mer player can become a decent coach.

Tagged as: Barcelona, Berlusconi, Bianconeri, Borriello, Flamini, Galli, Gattuso, Huntelaar, Juventus, Leonardo, milan, Nesta, Oddo, Palermo, Pato, Ronaldinho, rossoneri, Sampdoria, South Africa 2010, Tassotti, Zambrotta