AC Milan hit crisis point as Stefano Piolis fire goes out

June 10, 2024

A penitent Davide Calabria, the AC Milan captain, trudged towards the Curva Sud and held his hands up, imploring the stacked mass of ultras for forgiveness.

The San Siro crowd, Italy’s toughest to please, had not turned on its own. But there were some whistles, an atmosphere of disquiet exacerbated by Calabria’s team-mates scuffling with Sassuolo players as they descended the steps to the dressing room, making the long introspective walk down the tunnel with five goals and a historic defeat on their conscience.

Ever since small-town Sassuolo gained promotion to Serie A a decade ago, an achievement that frankly still beggars belief, a molecule in the helix of their football DNA seems predisposed to causing teams from Milan extremes of joy and pain. In May, an incredulous Stefano Pioli and his euphoric players were in the midst of a pitch invasion after unexpectedly winning a first Scudetto in 11 years on a balmy afternoon at Sassuolo’s Mapei stadium. Six months later, they were apologising for a 5-2 defeat to the same opponent.

Up in the stands, Milan’s ashen-faced technical director, Paolo Maldini, knew what the team was experiencing. The legendary defender had been there and conceded more goals in a single game at San Siro, a 6-1 thrashing against the Juventus of Zinedine Zidane and Christian Vieri in the spring of 1997. Considering the players Milan had at that time, the scoreline long figured as an aberration regardless of the context. It was a transition year and Milan finished 11th, the cognitive dissonance still fairly powerful given the club brought back Arrigo Sacchi, only for the double European Cup-winning coach to fail to get a tune out of an illustrious orchestra featuring Franco Baresi, Marcel Desailly, Dejan Savicevic, Zvone Boban, Roby Baggio and the dread-locked kid in the wraparound Oakleys, Edgar Davids.

Oddly, that glittering team, a more talented one than this vintage, was in a far worse position. Milan were second going into the weekend’s game, the same position as at this stage last year. How curious, then, that the prospect of a 5-2 defeat did not seem out of character.

Sassuolo celebrate their convincing win at AC Milan on Sunday (Photo: Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)

It was, instead, alarmingly on-trend. Milan have unravelled with a stupefying suddenness since Roma, out of nowhere, turned a certain 2-0 defeat on January 8 — “a game we dominated,” Maldini said — into a morale-crushing 2-2 draw with last-gasp set-piece goals from Roger Ibanez and Tammy Abraham. Disappointing as it was, the two points dropped should not have floored the champions, but the team has appeared insecure ever since.

The 10 men of Torino knocked Milan out of the Coppa Italia in extra time, with the goalscorer Adopo’s name serving as nominative determinism in translation. In Italian, it means: see you later. Down on Italy’s heel the following weekend, Milan were leggy and got another stiletto to their fragile confidence. Two-nil down at half-time to Lecce, it could have been worse and while the players launched a spirited comeback, almost rescuing more than a point, it did not bode well for the Supercoppa in Saudi Arabia.

Inter, inconsistent in their own way, tore through them in Riyadh, retaining the trophy with a convincing 3-0 win. “It’s a tough blow to take,” Pioli said. “But we’ll have the strength to react.”

Milan’s reaction was to then lose by four to Lazio and let in five against Sassuolo. Between the ferns in San Siro’s press room, Pioli was asked what he felt. Grimacing in his rollneck, he pronounced one word: “Pain.”

The Scudetto on Milan’s shirts has come unstitched. Keeping it already seemed a tall order. Milan are only four points worse off than a year ago but unlike then, they have a title rival doing the extraordinary. If Serie A were a Mario Kart circuit, Napoli are on close to record pace after 20 games, power-drifting through stars and mushrooms, racing against history and the ghosts of Juventus in 2014 (102 points) and 2018 rather than the present, spluttering pack.

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Milan’s title win, while a story of identity and aura rediscovered, bore less resemblance to others in the club’s illustrious history and more with the improbable fairytale exploits of Verona in 1985 and Sampdoria in 1991, when teams with smaller budgets seized the moment and overcame the odds.

The magic spell cast two years ago when Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Simon Kjaer joined the club, raising standards and taking the pressure off a group of kids with talent still yet to be fulfilled, had an exponential effect that endured. Alas, it now seems nearly broken, a reminder of the fragile and fleeting nature of success and how precious it was that the players, coach and club made sure they were ready when the opportunity to win a Scudetto presented itself this time last year. After all, you never know when it might come around again. Saying ‘next year’ as consolation after a failed title bid is no guarantee, and 2023 serves as ample demonstration of that.

How, then, to explain Milan’s travails amid the unrealistic expectations of a repeat and the acknowledgement that this is a relative crisis in a season in which progress has at least been made in qualifying for the Champions League knockout stages for the first time since 2014.

The protracted absence of goalkeeper Mike Maignan has been glaring every time B-movie hitman Ciprian Tatarusanu concedes at his near post. Fikayo Tomori and Pierre Kalulu have missed his presence, their precocious partnership broken up by injury over the autumn and affected by oscillating form.

Sassuolo’s Armand Lauriente fires past Ciprian Tatarusanu (Photo: Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)

Theo Hernandez, like his fellow France international team-mate Olivier Giroud, has gone from losing a World Cup final straight into Serie A, the backline scantly protected by the habitual ball-watcher Sandro Tonali and a Serie A MVP in Rafa Leao. Off the pitch, the Portuguese is debating whether to commit to a new contract; on it, he has never been the most diligent at tracking back at the best of times. Italy’s meanest defence last season is now only two goals away from matching the total it conceded in the entirety of the 2021-22 campaign, with 18 games remaining.

“Last year’s title was down to our spirit and that needs finding again,” Maldini said. Too often since the league resumed, Milan have looked spaced out, the players scattering like pigeons in Piazza Duomo rather than maintaining a compact, tough-to-play-through shape.

Pioli’s attempts to snap his players out of it have, thus far, failed. After Milan lost a friendly 3-0 to PSV during the World Cup, he cancelled their day off, dismayed by the players’ attitude. The 57-year-old did the same following the Lazio defeat, a performance made all the more worrying by Milan’s inability to stay in the game. The training sessions since, Pioli said, “Were the best in recent times for concentration and application.” He did not see a 5-2 defeat coming.

Pioli has not been under this scrutiny since Milan lost 5-0 to Atalanta before Christmas three years ago. He was two months into the job at the time and the shadow of Ralf Rangnick began to stalk him. But Pioli turned it around and Milan’s trajectory has been onwards and upwards, the credit in the bank and goodwill undeniable, a place in posterity as assured as the Scudetto tattooed on his forearm.

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Hope in a reversal of fortune remains and perhaps it has already started with Pioli admitting: “The things that worked up until a few weeks ago are not working, so it’s clear there will be some changes. It would be foolish on my part to carry on down a path that isn’t getting results.”

Whether that’s going to a back three or losing a No 10 to stiffen the midfield remains to be seen. This time last year, Pioli was attracting plaudits for updating his methodology, mixing avant-garde pressing with pleasingly unpredictable build-up concepts. As contradictory as it sounds, Milan were simultaneously one-dimensional, their winning formula a blend of clean sheets and ‘palla a Rafa’ — get it to Leao.

But the team has stopped evolving. On the one hand, that’s down to Pioli, his line-ups and in-game decisions. Take Sunday, for example. Pioli once again placed faith in part-time centre-back and full-time revolving door Matteo Gabbia rather than Malick Thiaw. He disregarded Yacine Adli again and left Leao out of the starting XI, bringing him on for Charles De Ketelaere when Ante Rebic was on a booking.

More generally, the refusal to consider De Ketelaere for Milan’s problem position on the right wing in favour of Junior Messias and Alexis Saelemaekers has been a source of bafflement, surpassed only by Pioli spending the first months of the season teaching his €36million (£31.6m; $39.2m) Scudetto present the role just off Giroud only to abandon the experiment and go back to Brahim Diaz at Milan’s No 10. “De Ketelaere has a five-year contract,” Maldini said. “We can’t judge him after five months.”

Stefano Pioli is under pressure at AC Milan (Photo: Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)

This was once true of Tonali and Leao, who only began to fulfil their potential after a year learning the ropes under San Siro’s red girders. Nevertheless, the summer transfer window was, in retrospect, the worst at Milan since January 2021, when Maldini thought Mario Mandzukic, now retired, and Soualiho Meite, now at Cremonese, might help his team get the edge on Antonio Conte’s Inter.

In fairness, the takeover caused delays last summer but so did Maldini and Ricky Massara (M&M) running their contracts down and pointing to the Scudetto to obtain more power under owners RedBird than they enjoyed under Elliott. Milan lost the month of June and wasted time on Sven Botman, a player they didn’t need in light of Kalulu’s emergence, not to mention the PSG-bound Renato Sanches. The groundwork chief scout Geoffrey Moncada laid to sign Enzo Fernandez went to waste. The World Cup winner joined Benfica instead and, only six months later, he may move to Chelsea for close to 10 times what the Portuguese league leaders paid River Plate to sign him.

The pivot from Botman to De Ketelaere and Leeds’ ability to bid higher meant the deal for the Belgium international dragged on. Divock Origi arrived injured, Sergino Dest was a haphazard reaction to Alessandro Florenzi’s injury and the Aster Vranckx and Thiaw signings only came when Milan were paid the sell-on clause in Lucas Paqueta’s contract. As a window, it’s close to the 6-1 defeat Maldini suffered to Juventus in 1997 and while fans round on Tatarusanu, remember how instead of sourcing a better backup goalkeeper for Maignan, Milan signed an unknown Colombian playing in Paraguay, the worst M&M collaboration since… (I can’t think of a worse Eminem collaboration).

The blame must be shared. Milan fell out of the top four on Sunday and can’t let this drift continue when Atalanta, Roma and Lazio have all started 2023 so well. They need a spark. Pioli’s on fire, an anthem at San Siro these past two years, smoulders rather than roars. The question now is: can it be rekindled? Or will it extinguish in next week’s Derby della Madonnina?

(Top photo: Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)

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