I have neither the energy nor desire to analyze today’s game. In fact I am somewhat embarrassed to be a Milan fan at this point and time, and after receiving a text message from one of my tifosi amici that simply read, "What is wrong with Milan." I didn’t respond at the time but now I can politely say, "What isn’t."
The notion of untouchable players at Milan needs to be abandoned and with that the necessity of the set formation. Carletto needs to reassert his authority over the squad and begin to choose only the best 11 based on form and fitness. So if Sheva, Dinho, and whoever else is playing like shit then guess where they can start their match, you guessed it, and if you didn’t, it rhymes with wench. He also needs to realize that he can’t impose the xmas tree formation on any old eleven players, he needs to look at the personnel at hand and make a determination on how to setup the squad. Milan’s formation and tactics are found out; any anyone can come out and strike on the counter when Milan commits numbers forward. This formation lacks width, creativity, and any real sense of offensive threat, it just plain sucks.
I hope to have a more constructive post later in the week, but right now this is all I can really muster. I leave you with an eerie image that I haven’t been able to shake for two weeks. When Baresi retired Milan were aging, they had a strong transfer campaign that saw the inclusion of Dutch, Davids, Reiziger, and later a young phenom named Kluivert, players to form the middle of the field, the team never gelled and the signings never materialized and Baresi left in a cloud of failure. This year Maldini is going to retire, the squad is aging, their transfer campaign saw the creation of a Brazilian foundation with a young Brazilian phenom in Pato, the team seems to lack chemistry and desire, and my fear is that Maldini will continue to follow in the footsteps of his mentor and legend before him…