Is the coffin closing on the once great AC Milan?
No matter who you support, their are moments in sports you just sit back and admire the greatness you are witnessing. Manchester United’s treble winning team in 1999, the Barcelona dynasty of the 2000’s and the majestic AC Milan teams of the early nineties had that admiration of soccer fans. Sadly for Milan fans those days seem almost invisible in the rear-view mirror.
While their city rivals Inter are currently holding top spot over Juventus in Serie A on goal difference, Milan are languishing in tenth, twenty two points behind and ten points away from Atalanta in fourth, the last Champions League qualifying place. It’s a far cry from the mid nineties teams that won four Serie A titles in five years, along with three Supercoppa Italiana’s, a Champions League and a European Super Cup.
Led by Fabio Capello, together with the talents of Marco Van Basten, Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi and Frank Rijkaard (to name but a few), Milan were constantly one of the easiest teams to watch. They had everything. Skill…Grit…Determination. Even now, when I look back, I’m glad I got to witness that team first hand.
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Lately, however, things have not been as good for Milan. There was a botch takeover of the club in 2017 by Chinese Businessman Li Yonghong who used high interest loans from US hedgefund Elliott Management to fund the acquisition and then couldn’t repay it. Due to this, Elliott Management, led by US Billionaire Paul Singer, took control of the club in July 2018.
On the field things haven’t been any better and silverware has been much more scarce. Their last League title came in 2011 and their last trophy of note was the Suppercoppa Italiana in 2016.
This season in particular has been nothing short of a disaster. In July they were kicked out of the Europa League for not meeting UEFA’s Financial Fair Play criteria, before sacking Marco Giampaolo seven games into his tenure as manager and hiring Stefano Pioli to replace him. Pioli’s current record sits at 8-6-5 for a win ratio of 42%.
With all that said their could still be silverware at the end of the season as they face Juventus in the Coppa Italia semi finals. For Milan, this could be their only way into European football next season, with the first leg taking place at the San Siro Stadium on Thursday.
Ante Rebic put Milan in the lead with 61 minutes played, before a late Cristiano Ronaldo penalty tied things up for Juventus.
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This leaves it all to play for in the second leg on the 4th of March at the Allianz Stadium in Turin as Milan look to plot their rebirth, a return to the glory days of the nineties, while Juventus will be looking to put another nail in the already closing coffin of the Red and Blacks.
