The Rossoneri coach is ready to start the race again: the club supports him, the controversies are over, the calendar smiles until January and if Zlatan returns…
– MILAN
Stefano Pioli today has two broad shoulders like this: they go from New York to Milanello, passing through Via Aldo Rossi and the skyscrapers of Porta Nuova, where Zlatan Ibrahimovic will soon dissolve his reservations about his third AC Milan life, ever closer. Everyone for Pioli, Pioli for everyone: because the week that has just been archived will certainly not go down in history as one of Milan’s most brilliant, but this is not the place to dramatize. On the contrary. Milan is a lively team – we saw it in the show of Maradona’s first 45 minutes – and above all they are in full swing for their seasonal objectives: the Scudetto is currently 3 points away and the calendar is starting to smile, the Champions League round of 16 is uphill but not impossible. A success on November 7th against PSG would change perspectives and perceptions. Perceptions about Pioli, however, have never changed at Milan: the more social media targets him – the substitutions, the tactical attitude, the injuries -, the more the club supports him.
the society
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For the Pioli owners he was and remains a technician on fire, the gentleman coach who knows how to make the most of the technical capital available and obtain results. The company choices this summer say so, which have put Pioli at the center of the project as much and more than before: he has never been involved in transfer strategies like this season, and the harmony with the CEO Furlani, the head of the technical area Moncada and the sporting director D’Ottavio was almost total. Pioli personally worked on hiring new players, from Pulisic to Loftus-Cheek, from Reijnders to Chukwueze, he asked for and obtained functional profiles for Milan that he had in mind. The transfer choices were then followed by those on the pitch, and here Pioli positively surprised the club’s top management: with such a profoundly renewed squad, a trial period was a scenario to take into account and instead Milan started immediately strong. He skidded in the derby, true, but he started running again, climbing up to first place alone, then losing it after the defeat against Juve: in short, Pioli gained time on the initial forecasts, the slowdowns in the big matches – Juve precisely, but also PSG and the draw against Napoli – do not prevent Milan from looking at the rest of the season with the same confidence as in August. Gerry Cardinale, RedBird’s number one owner of Milan, has never failed to support the coach: he will be at San Siro for the return match against PSG next Tuesday. Then, perhaps, Milan will have started winning again, because Udinese arrive on Saturday: a delicate but absolutely manageable match and it’s not the only one. After having put all the direct clashes behind them (Atalanta is missing), from now until the end of the first round the Rossoneri will play 6 matches out of 9 against medium-low ranking opponents: it is the great opportunity and will “call” for championship points .
IBRA TOWARDS THE RETURN
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Cardinale’s return to Milan could provide assistance for a new meeting with Ibrahimovic, after the meetings in mid-September, when Mr. RedBird and the former striker met for two days in a row between Milanello and a hotel in the center of Milan. From then to today, the contacts between the ownership and Zlatan have remained alive, very alive: Ibra has also spoken about the possible return with the CEO. Furlani and the reflections are ongoing, even if those who know Zlatan tell of an intrigued Ibra. The white smoke could be much closer than the parties involved let on. And an Ibrahimovic back at Milanello, perhaps as a collaborator of Pioli, in close daily contact with the team, would make everyone happy: the coach, who with Zlatan has forged a decisive axis to bring Milan back to success in Italy, and Ibrahimovic himself, involved in a project that would see him operational.
the locker room
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Now more compactness With Zlatan at his side in the locker room, Pioli would find the inimitable leadership (his words) of a champion who until a few months ago set an example for his teammates. But the management of the group, for the Rossoneri coach, has never been a problem and it isn’t even now: there were moments of tension between Paris and Naples, from Calabria’s words at the Parc des Princes to the reactions of Leao and Giroud after Maradona’s changes, but everything came back quickly, let’s say in the space of a plane trip. However, one thing is certain: Pioli, in those post-match moments, wasn’t the only one who didn’t like it. As instinctive as they were, the club didn’t like certain statements either, and the team got the message. Because to take off, this Milan will have to be compact.
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