Allegri, the return of Mr. Corto Museo. But the numbers say more

In his 804 coach games, between championship and various cups Massimiliano Allegri collected 435 wins. Of these, 114 came with the score of one to zero, the so -called minimum waste to conquer the 3 points: just over 26 percent of the total. Perhaps it is only a valueless curiosity, perhaps they are numbers that something will want to say, now that Count Max returns to sit on a bench – that of Milan, where he has already won a championship in 2011 – and simultaneously starts again on his old style football. According to the aforementioned numbers, it would be appropriate to give up a little with the story of the “short muzzle”, moreover dart from the cylinder from Max himself in 2019, after a defeat of his Juve with the Spal who had delayed the Scudetto party.

Allegri makes irony (sarcasm), of the subtle and intelligent provocation, a weapon of mass distraction. It is of those who have understood everything: of football and life. By now he plays, on that term borrowed from horse racing (his great passion), used to explain the victory of a horse on the other for a gluing – the part of the animal that includes the head and neck – therefore for an infinitesimal detachment or a little more. Applied to football, this expression has become the label that the critics have attached to him to justify the alleged trend, he who as a footballer was a midfielder and then a mezzala offensive, to a game voted more to prudence than to the risk. Allegri Maestro in the art of satisfying himself, even more than in that of making himself, in short. But if it is true that it is always a matter of points of view, it would be time to give us a cut, in fact, with the story of Allegri defensive, Cinotacciaro (in this regard, so he replied to the question about how his Milan will play: “If I do not answer, you say that I am Cinotacciaro; instead we will be offensive …”), therefore faithful to an antiquated idea, overtaken, stale and offensively as well, to say as well. Low center of gravity, compact defense and then in front of a gullet sooner or later comes out. Allegri is not so. At least, it has not always been.

Winning or convincing?

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Of course, the coach of Sassuolo and Cagliari (to keep silent of Agliana, Grosseto and Spal …) was not properly at the wheel of Fuoriserie, therefore there is that his repeated the old adage of the ‘first do not take them’. The fact is that, from that 1-2 in Spal’s house, ours has won 1-0 on 27 occasions out of 61 games: the percentage rises to more than 44%, demonstrating that, perhaps, that beaten on the ‘short muzzle’ – direct in truth more than anything else to illustrate the Allegrianic philosophy: the important thing is to win the championship, and who cares if for a single point – has actually engraved on its way of doing football, at least from a way of doing football. Career onwards. And, if it is true that it is almost always the cooler memory you have of a person who directs the opinion on it, here it has become, Oborto neck, the symbol of a kick that (in words) no longer likes anyone anymore. In short, everyone reproaches him the last three years to Juve, indeed forgers of disappointments rather than satisfaction, and few dig in the memory in search of the large flashes of ‘Bel Gioco’ (to put it on Berlusconi, who, on the advice of Galliani, brought him to Milan) showed in the Rossoneri first and then in black and white.

judgments and prejudices

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It has been written that Allegri has the value – or defect: here too, it depends on the points of view – to always believe a little smarter than the others, and, therefore, in his ‘non -said’ that alternate with mocking punishment when not, on the contrary, with television unmented vehements against his occasional critics (bags) or long -term (Adani), there is so much of the typically Livornese adoption. mocking. On the contrary, it does not weigh him, to be pigeonholed in the list of ‘results’ opposed to that of the ‘games’ or alleged such. Faithful to his pragmatism, Allegri considers certain speeches on the quality of the game a pure exercise of style, smoky if not even superfluous: “If you want to have fun, go to the circus,” he said in the moments when certain reliefs more have annoyed him. Yet, returning to the numbers, to the debut on the bench of a large one, to Milan, precisely, the Scudetto wins with 65 goals scored, second attack of the championship behind that of Inter (69 goals). On the other hand, it undergoes only 24, proof – as has been reiterated still at the beginning of his second adventure in the Rossoneri – of the fact that “in Italy who takes less goals. In recent years only Sarri, at Juve, has reversed the trend”. Having said that, the (pre) judgment on a cheerful (in) healthy bearer of a speculative, defensive football, therefore not very exciting and engaging, seems frankly naive; Fruit, it was said, of the last black and white three-year period, stingy with satisfactions and play, consequence of a team gradually emptied of talent, who forced him to make it of necessity virtue (and so he could explain, at least in part, that 44% of 1-0) and of a corporate crisis to contain the damage of which Allegri had to do as a mudguard, to keep the players who were sheltered from the currents. But Allegri’s first Juve had also given a show in Europe, net of the two Champions League finals lost in 2017 and 2019. On the other course of the scale there are the 5 badges and the 4 Italian cups in a row, plus 2 Italian Super Cups. Of course, it is the Juve of Buffon-Barzagli-Bonucci-Chiellini in defense, of Pjanic in the middle of the field, of Tévez (even if only one season), Dybala, Higuain and Mandzukic in front.

Football is simple

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But it is Allegri himself who claims that the players count more than the game, in spite of colleagues (most) who instead adapt the interpreters to the score. Contrary to certain dogmas Max instead believes “that they do not win the patterns, but the technical gestures of the players. Football is simple: defensive organization and individual technique”. At Sportweek, June 2009, after the splendid season at the helm of Cagliari (except already at the end of the first leg), at his debut as a technician in Serie A, he came to say: “From someone like Mourinho they divide my ideas about football: at the center of everything I put the players, not the coach. I get the stomach ache to hear only with philosophers of modules and patterns”. Words pronounced, however, after showing off an offensive, brilliant game, ball on the ground, which would have earned him the golden bench of best coach in the championship. Words that cost him the accusation of an offensive maneuver poor in ideas, for the benefit of individual initiatives, in general of a (excessive) freedom left to the players. Moreover, when in front you have talents all inventively and dribbling like Ibra and Robinho in her first Milan (as proof of her pragmatism, in January she replaced the declining Ronaldinho with the mastiff Van Bommel, and won the Scudetto) or Dybala and Tevez at Juve, it does not seem a bad idea to loosen his bridle. It is Allegri himself who explains it even more clearly: “In football there are categories. There are players who win the Champions League, those who win the championships, and those who win nothing”. Modric certainly belongs to the first category, the star of his new Milan, about the quality of the players who counts more than the patterns (Max Dixit). It remains to be seen if his is a provocation or real conviction, considering that colleagues who went down in history (bags, guardiola … to mention the last) are those who have traced new ways to victory.

galleon

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The fact is, that Allegri said to SW: “My point of reference remains Galeone. He was one who understood without giving herself many arias. They sewed a dress on him and that was forced to bring himself later. They considered him naive, but he was only such for the ignorant. The fault was not to boast of having invented football. It was not one of those who lost sleep thinking about the diagonals”. A year later, always at Sportweek, but this time as a Milan technician: “I have never seen a coach to score from the bench. The best one is the one who does less damage”. And again: “My tactical model is Barcelona. They play well because they play simple, and simplicity is the most difficult thing to achieve. They have sent the basic concepts by heart, the rest is lightness and fantasy. They have fun: you see it from how they move themselves and the ball”. It was the Barça di Guardiola, look a little. So, Max, how do we put it? It would perhaps answer with the same words of that time (“from good Livornese laugh, joke and ironize, on myself and on others”), seasoning everything with that vaguely teasing smile of those who take things as they should be done: not too seriously. And it does nothing if you become, sorry for the term, divisive. Indeed, for someone like him, the beauty lies in this.