Lukaku and the returning champions: Bonucci, Sheva, Kakà, Ibra

You must never go back to the places where you have been well. Never get back with the same woman. Aphorisms from chocolates, an absolute law does not exist. You can go back to where you have been, you can remarry the woman he got divorced from. And you can walk away from a football team and think about it a few months later. This is what is about to happen to Romelu Lukaku.

Barring always possible surprises, the Belgian center forward will play again at Inter, a year after the “escape” from Milan, covered with millions from Chelsea. The history of football is full of to and fro.

Winter of 2017, something goes wrong between Massimiliano Allegri and Leonardo Bonucci. In Porto, in the Champions League, the Juventus defender ends up in the stands, watching the game sitting on a stool that makes a lot of punishment. Then Juve loses the Champions League final in Cardiff and yields to Milan’s maxi offer of the new mysterious Chinese property, 42 million for Bonucci. Leo is out of luck. A fan asks him if he is there to shift the balance, he replies that he will do everything possible to succeed, but he passes the message of “Bonucci who shifts the balance”. The Milan season of the former Juventus player is neither disastrous nor exciting. Faded, let’s say. Bonucci, appointed captain, does his best, on social networks he launches the motivational hashtag #weareateam, we are a team, but commitment and good intentions are not enough, and in the summer of 2018 he returns to Turin for 35 million. His Juventinism is profound, the call of the irresistible forest.

In his Juve bis he clarifies with Allegri, he embraces Chiellini and resumes winning national championships and cups. The Champions, no. Bonucci, in coming and going, had an illustrious predecessor, the Ballon d’Or Fabio Cannavaro, at Juve between 2004 and 2006, and then in 2009-10, after three years at Real Madrid. An unfortunate return from 7th place.

A Champions League, a Scudetto, the Golden Ball. In the early years of the new century, Andriy Shevchenko, with his glacial gaze, like an Eastern scorer, “spies in two” any defense and makes Milan fly to Europe. Seven seasons of fat cows, then the American bride enters the scene, as in a book by Mario Soldati. Kristen Pazik, the American Mrs. Sheva, wants her children to perfect their English and convinces her husband to accept Chelsea’s proposal. Sheva goes, scores little, just 9 goals, and wins a little something, for example an FA Cup. You do not exalt anyone and the English press does the math in his pocket: bad operation for the cost-performance ratio. So, in the summer of 2008, Sheva struggled to return to Milan, so much the children have assimilated English. Berlusconi pleases him, if he takes it back on loan, but nothing is like before, not even the shirt. The 7th is occupied by Pato, engaged to the president’s daughter, so Shevchenko has to fall back on the 76th year of birth. A sad season, seasoned with the misery of two goals.

Team of Returners

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Milan is a team of great “returners”, Inter Milan is not. Let’s leave out Gullit, now prehistoric. Let’s go to Kaka, who shared Sheva’s trajectory. Six years of triumphs in the Rossoneri, the Champions League and the Ballon d’Or in 2007, and in 2009 the posting. Impossible to resist the charm of Real, despite the fans gathering under his house to beg him. Kaka in Madrid, however, does not take root, tormented as he is by groin pain and a knee. In four seasons he won a Liga, scored thirty goals, the minimum wage. And in 2013 he returns to Milan. Galliani can sing his favorite song, Venditti’s about the loves that make certain huge rounds and then come back, but Kakà dances for one last mediocre year.

Another Milan fan was Mario Balotelli, twice AC Milan, the first between 2013 and 2014 and the second in 2015-16. The first was good (30 goals in 54 games) and the second was mediocre (three goals). The king of the Milan fans is Ibrahimovic: in the Rossoneri he won the Scudetto in 2011, then he went around. He took Milan back by the scruff of the scruff at Christmas 2019, when the team was in disarray, and put him back in the basket of the big clubs with the 2022 scudetto. Eleven years have passed between one Ibra scudetto and the next, but the Inter fans with Lukaku are hoping for an identical outcome, scudetto at the first time and scudetto at the second.