Before Pisa the coach set the quota to return to Europe at 74 points and no more than 25 goals conceded to win the championship. How is the Devil? Current projections are not sufficient for both objectives
There are coaches who like to philosophize, project themselves and their team into the future by talking about maximum systems, generic objectives tending more or less towards the ethereal. To put it prosaically: crap. Then there are coaches who like to delve more into frankness, or at least give those who listen to them something more concrete. Massimiliano Allegri did it on the eve of the match against Pisa. He went berserk, and not because he had a nervous breakdown (if anything, he had to deal with that after the match). He actually provided some concrete figures, i.e. those that according to him are needed: 1) to win the championship; 2) to qualify for the Champions League. That is, those who are the two seasonal objectives of the Devil (obviously better if the first arrives, which also brings the second with it).
act of courage
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What are these numbers? Simple: to win the scudetto the goals conceded must be between 20 and 25. To return to the Europe that counts you need at least 74 points. Having publicly released these figures is an act of courage because it sets a bar which, if not reached, exposes one to reproaches. They are those types of tables that coaches normally try to stay away from, as they are classic traps. Allegri, however, returned to Milan to show his face. To bring the Devil back to where he should be and therefore he has no problems exposing himself, even if it is very early to imagine the heights that his team will be able to reach at the end of May. In the meantime, however, we can certainly make a projection, starting from current data. With a premise: Allegri, since he knows his troops, used decidedly… demanding numbers.
minimum target
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Let’s start with the points for the Champions League zone. After eight days of the championship, Milan have 17 points (+3 compared to a year ago). Maintaining this average (2.1 per game), he would find himself at the end of the season with 81 points: 80.7 to be picky. Therefore, well above Max’s 74. Considering the minimum objective of fourth place and observing the final ranking of the last five championships, no problem: Juve ’24-25 finished at 70, Atalanta ’23-24 at 69, Milan ’22-23 at 70 and there are no problems even looking at the ’20-21 year in which everyone was running ahead (Juve at 78 points). Rather, if this year the top teams continue like this, with ups and downs, 81 points could perhaps even be enough for the Scudetto: last season Napoli won with 82.
look at the past
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Let’s now move on to the championship projection, which Allegri links to the number of goals conceded (no more than 25). Up to this point the Devil has conceded 6. Maintaining this average, at the end of the championship they would be 28.5. Here, therefore, according to Allegri’s thought, we go beyond the limits. Again considering the five previous years, the data proves him partially right: in ’24-25 Napoli finished with 27 and in ’23-24 Inter with 22. But in ’22-23 Napoli also ended with 28 goals scored, in ’21-22 Milan with 31 and in ’20-21 Inter with even 35 (obviously, the higher the quantity of goals collected, the greater the offensive production). Final considerations: the current points average is perfect for returning to the Champions League and (very) unreliable in terms of the championship, while in terms of the championship the average goals conceded certainly needs to be improved. But we are quite certain that Allegri has it very clear in mind.
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