His colleagues respect him, his fans accuse him. Over twenty years of career, he has worked alongside Pioli since 2011
Matteo Osti enjoys great popularity among the Rossoneri fans: unusual for an athletic trainer, a figure who works behind the scenes. On social media he is instead considered a protagonist and is entrusted with the role of the villain. To the Milan fans who consider him the main culprit for the (poor) health of the muscles of Kalulu, Leao, Thiaw… Osti can oppose the title of best trainer of 2021-22, the year of the scudetto. Awarded with the Golden Chronometer by his own colleagues. “I have been doing this job for twenty years now and it is truly a great honor to have achieved this goal,” he said at the time. Born in 1971, originally from Ostiglia, in the province of Mantua, Osti oversaw the athletic preparation of Chievo in Serie A in 2010, then of Palermo. The collaboration with Stefano Pioli began at Bologna in 2011 and continued with Lazio, Inter, Fiorentina and Milan. For the club, the coach and his staff are not the main ones responsible for the many physical stops of the Rossoneri squad: at most, they share the blame. Which in some ways is also recognised: “We will try to understand the reason for so many injuries, the data worries me” admits Pioli. While the prediction made before Milan-Fiorentina did not come true: “The break helped us find some solutions, I’m sure that the injury numbers will improve in the future.” In any case, it is inevitable that the work of the athletic trainer is associated externally with the physical fitness of the team.
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And even within Milanello a reflection on the working methods of Osti and the staff will be made again. Only ten days ago Osti himself had participated as a speaker at the “Il nuova calcio” conference where he was heard as an expert in “high-speed and intensity training in the game of football”. On the occasion he explained: “The cornerstones of our work? Awareness and responsibility. The player must also be involved during athletic work, he is an active part of it. For this reason we aim to involve as much as possible even those who play less. It is not uncommon to see players at work, even an hour after the end of the session. They stay to recover, they learn to manage themselves.” Curiosity: a similar precedent, with the athletic trainer in the dock, had already involved the club in 2017. Montella’s Milan, weak and unloaded in some outings, identified the culprit in Emanuele Marra, in charge of the preparation. The company decided to remove him.