AC Milan are a mess! Christian Pulisic’s excellence even more impressive as Rossoneri descend into ‘total chaos’

Not for the first time this season, Pulisic was Milan’s best player in Saturday’s 3-3 draw with Genoa, a lovely assist for Olivier Giroud the highlight of a dynamic display. He was a “constant” threat, as the Gazzetta dello Sport acknowledged in its match ratings: “[He] always made the right moves. The problem is the others…”

It was a fair point. So many of Milan’s most important players have underwhelmed this season. Maignan hasn’t dropped any clangers but just hasn’t been his usual magical self, while Fikayo Tomori’s form has dipped since the surprise Scudetto success of 2022.

And then there’s Leao. The Portuguese remains Milan’s talisman, and statistically speaking, he’s had a more productive campaign than Pulisic. But Leao is a level or two above the American, meaning the bar is set so much higher for him.

So, a subdued showing against Genoa, which came after dismal displays against Inter and Juventus, resulted in Leao not only being rightly withdrawn by Pioli, but also being booed as he left the field. The winger responded by heading straight down the tunnel rather than taking his seat on the bench.

Consequently, there is a very real chance that Milan may decide to cash in on their most valuable asset. “He’s no longer able to be Leao,” the Gazzetta pointed out. “Now it’s decision time: does he feel able to start over here in Milan or would it also be better for him to change team?”

It’s quite the dilemma for the club’s America owners, Redbird Capital Partners, whose management has come under increasing scrutiny over the past two years.

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  ‘Winning project starts from the club’

  Before the Genoa game, the Curva Sud unveiled a banner which read “Communication strategy. Institutional presence. Targeted signings. Cohesion, ambition, ability. A winning project starts from the club.”

  When the game kicked off, there was a sustained round of applause from the ultras and then… nothing. No singing of songs, no waving of flags, no signs of support at all. Worse still, with 10 minutes remaining in a game that was still in the balance, they just left, labelling their protest ‘The sound of silence’ – and it was deafening.

  “You have to respect the fans,” Pioli said afterwards. “They have their reasons.” There are a lot of them, too, but it all basically boils down to a perceived lack of clarity, communication and ambition – as perhaps best illustrated by the calamitous coaching situation.

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    Lopetegui backlash

    While RedBird owner Gerry Cardinale rarely speaks to the press, Milan president Paolo Scaroni, CEO Giorgio Furlani and technical director Geoffrey Moncada have been repeatedly asked about Pioli’s position, but not one has confirmed what everyone else knows: that the Scudetto-winning coach will be sacked at the end of the season.

    This, in spite of the fact, that Milan were ready to hire Julen Lopetegui as Pioli’s successor just last week, only for a bitter fan backlash to prompt a stunning 11th-hour U-turn. As far as Cardinale & Co. were concerned, the Spaniard ticked all the boxes. He had plenty of experience of continental competition (even winning the Europa League with Sevilla) and working with young players (at under-age level with Spain).

    However, the fans were seriously underwhelmed by the prospect of hiring a man who had lasted just 10 league games in charge of Real Madrid – and been out of work since leaving Wolves at the end of the 2022-23 Premier League season.

    Less than 48 hours after news of his imminent arrival at San Siro broke, ‘#Nopetegui’ was trending on X, while 10,000 Milan supporters had signed a petition calling on the club’s owners to call off the deal.

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    ‘Total chaos reigns’

    It was a painfully embarrassing climbdown that not only made Milan’s owners look weak, but also leaves them in a very awkward position. As the Curva Sud pointed out in a statement released before last week’s walkout, “You can’t think of having a winning project if you still don’t know who the new coach will be in May… It becomes difficult to construct a team that is compatible with the needs of the new coach. Total chaos reigns within the club.”

    The ultras also made it clear that, two years into Cardinale’s tenure, their patience has run out. While accepting that Milan don’t have access to “rivers of money like other teams in other leagues”, they argued that greater investment in the first-team squad was the only way for RedBird to prove that they care more about winning trophies than making money.

    “Milan is not a product to speculate on and Milan is not a club that is content to merely participate,” the Curva Sud warned. “Milan has a people behind it who by history and tradition are used to being in the elite of world football.”

    And it’s worth remembering that club legend Paolo Maldini repeatedly made the very same argument before being ruthlessly axed by Milan last summer.

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      ‘Two steps back’

      Maldini called Milan’s 2021-22 title triumph “a masterpiece”, and it was in its own way. The Rossoneri didn’t have the best players, but they had the best team. It was a united group of players, coaches and directors all working towards the same goal.

      It was a surprise success, though. Maldini and Ricky Massara had constructed a Scudetto-winning squad on a shoe-string budget. Maldini’s stellar standing in the game had played a pivotal role in convincing the likes of Leao and Theo to move to Milan, but both directors knew that greater investment was required if they were to really restore the Rossoneri to its former glory and once again become a major player in European football.

      Milan did reach the semi-finals of the Champions League last season, but Maldini, who lifted the trophy five times as a player, knew that Pioli and his players had once again over-achieved, and argued after losing the ‘Derby of all Derbies’ to Inter in insipid fashion that if RedBird didn’t sufficiently strengthen the squad, the club risked taking “two steps back”.

      “As we said last season, we are not yet built to handle two tournaments,” he told Mediaset. “We said that to the media, but also to the club owners, so they know that full well.”

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      Decision ‘taken many months before’

      Maldini, in conjunction with Massara, even prepared a 35-page, three-year plan that he claims received no response from either Furlani or Cardinale, who then informed him of his dismissal over breakfast at the end of the 2022-23 season.

      “If the owners want to change the organisational set-up, they have the right to do so,” the Italian icon told La Repubblica. “Even in this case, however, the details are important, and many things did not go as they should have, out of respect for people and their roles…

      “I met Cardinale in passing during some Champions League matches, but in the space of a year I only had a chat about how sports management was going. He wrote four messages to me for the various stages of the shift, without even calling me. The first thing he told me, when we met, was that we had to trust each other. I trusted, but, how it went is known to everyone. I believe that the decision to fire me and Massara had been taken many months before.”

      It certainly wouldn’t be surprising, given it’s clear that Maldini, in particular, never saw eye to eye with either Scaroni or Furlani, whom he says often left games early when Milan were losing (“perhaps to beat the traffic…”) but were front and centre during the title celebrations.

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        ‘Sporting success creates financial success’

        Scaroni has since portrayed Maldini as a bitter individual. “I haven’t heard from him since [his dismissal],” the president said. “When someone looks at their past with a certain level of acrimony, it means that they are not living the present very well.”

        He’s also argued that Maldini was no longer needed at Milan, that he had served his purpose, arguing that the club no longer had any issue attracting top talent to the club, thus making his role redundant.

        Furlani, meanwhile, has dismissed the accusation that he is nothing more than a ‘numbers man’ who prioritises keeping the shareholders happy over addressing the fans’ frustrations. “Sporting success creates financial success,” he said at the Social Football Summit in Rome. “It’s strange to say it over and over again, but the resources that are created by the business are reinvested in the football product to be more successful. I am convinced that it must be like this. In the medium-term, the interests of the fan and the shareholder are the same.”

        Such statements have not gone over well with some supporters, who are also concerned by the ongoing investigation into whether RedBird actually acquired outright control of the club – or if it’s still effectively owned by Elliott Management.

        “Milan’s owner has been RedBird since August 2022,” Furlani insisted in an interview with the Gazzetta. “Elliott has granted a vendor loan which is one of the many possible ways to conclude an operation of this magnitude. There is nothing hidden, everything is very transparent, the facts are easily verifiable. It’s right that the authorities do their duty, we remain fully cooperative. The only wish is that it be done quickly, a bit of annoyance in the air is inevitable. But we have zero fear of [the investigation].”

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        What next?

        The supporters are understandably unsettled, though. There is just too much uncertainty surrounding San Siro right now. The search for a new coach could well be drawing to a close, with Porto’s Sergio Conceicao having emerged as the favourite to take over in recent days. But given the “total chaos” of the past few weeks and months, nobody is taking anything for granted.

        In an obvious attempt to attach a popular player to the new project, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has returned to San Siro as an advisor, but nobody is entirely sure what his new role entails – and whether such a famously combustible character will prove suited to a position of such diplomacy. There are also ongoing doubts over the Cardinale-backed ‘Moneyball’ approach that Maldini continues to argue can only take the club so far. Certainly, this season’s results have been less than inspiring.

        Milan signed 10 players last summer, but only Pulisic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Tijjani Reijnders have become first-team regulars. Furlani has pointed to the fact “in the last year, Milan ran at a profit for the first time in 17 years” but that was primarily down to the sale of Sandro Tonali to Newcastle.

        Furthermore, for all of the fanfare surrounding the new arrivals, the squad doesn’t actually look any stronger than the one that won the title before reaching the semi-finals of the Champions League. They’re certainly nowhere near the level of Inter, who have won the past six Milan derbies and are presently 18 points better off than their city rivals in the Serie A standings.

        “The season that is about to finish did not go as we wanted,” Furlani acknowledged after the 0-0 draw with Juve. “And there are a lot of rumours doing the rounds, it’s annoying. But we are already working on the future and the market.”

        However, what that means for Pulisic, Pioli, Leao or anyone else connected with the club is anyone’s guess.