The Beginner's Guide to the AC Milan Women (Updated)

The AC Milan Women are coming off the high of their first Champions League campaign. And though the campaign ended in a rather disappointing manner, interest in the team has piqued.

Fortunately for you, I’ve put together this handy dandy guide for you to get to know them.

Here’s a handy, dandy guide to all things Rossonere.

Background

(Copy/Pasta from Wikipedia):

A.C. Milan Women, colloquially known as Milan Women, is an Italian women’s association football club affiliated with A.C. Milan, the men’s professional football club in Milan. It was established in 2018 by acquiring the Serie A license of a Capriolo, Brescia-based team Brescia Calcio Femminile. The team competes in Serie A and are based out of the Centro Sportivo Vismara.

The team started playing in the 2018–19 season after taking over Brescia’s Serie A license.

Carolina Morace was the team’s first coach. She left after the first season due to disagreements with Elliott Management on how to run the team. She now manages the Lazio Women.

The current coach is Maurizio Ganz, and he was appointed in the wake of Morace’s departure.

Ganz has been the coach for the last two seasons and will oversee the team through this season as well.

How have the team done so far in Serie A Femminile?

So far, the team has done well and registered three winning seasons. During the first two seasons, the team were perpetual bridesmaids, as they narrowly missed out on Champions League qualification twice. The Rossonere narrowly missed out on Champions League qualification during their first season by one point. In 2020, they finished in third place again, this time on goal difference.

The team finally achieved their goal and qualified for Europe last season.

The goal for the team is not only to do well in the Champions League but to be competitive domestically and to finally win a trophy.

What is the team’s style of play?

The team alternates between a variety of formations. In the past, they’ve used a 4-3-3 or a 4-3-1-2 formation. Last season, the team fielded a 3-5-2 formation.

This year, the team might alternate between a 3-4-1-2 and a 4-2-3-1.

The team plays possession-based football but their possession is sometimes hampered by their inability to be clinical in front of goal.

The hope is that the team can overcome this setback soon and convert more of their chances.

An overview of Milan’s players

First and foremost, there’s Valentina Giacinti. The Milan captain is the Rossonere’s Golden Girl, and she has also won Serie A Femminile’s capocannoniere (leading scorer) award twice.

Then there’s also Laura Giuliani, the experienced goalkeeper who has won several domestic awards and personal accolades as well. Mária Korenčiová is also a great presence in-between the posts. Her presence ensures that we might have the strongest goalkeeping duo in the league. Other notable mentions are Refiloe Jane (the midfield general) and Valentina Bergamaschi (la Jolly). Bergamaschi is a versatile player who can play a variety of roles.

Lindsey Thomas and Nina Stapelfeldt will round out the team’s attack talent. Look for them to help facilitate and score a few goals.

Then there’s the team’s trio of defenders, Laura Agard, Laura Fusetti (vice-captain) and, Linda Tucceri Cimini. The three of them make up the bedrock of a rock-solid defense that has been instrumental to the Rossonere’s success.

And then there are the new kids. Guðný Árnadóttir is young but experienced. Guðný has experience at the highest level, and she’s played in both the Champions League with Valur and in European qualifiers with Iceland.

Similarly, Sara Thrige also has international and continental experience, both in the Champions League and by playing qualification matches for Denmark. She’s also won domestic trophies with Fortuna Hjørring and will bring that winning mentality to Milan.

Greta Adami also has continental experience as she played in the Champions League with Fiorentina. She has won the Scudetto, Coppa Italia, and Supercoppa Italiana with the Viola. She brings a wealth of experience to the Rossonere.

Then, of course, there is Milan’s duo of Spaniards. Vero Boquete and Laia Codina have both raised the profile of the squad.

Codina is a treble-winner and one of the brightest young talents in the game. Codina has much to learn from the team and much to give it as well. Her presence will also lend prestige to Milan, as it’s proof that the team is capable of attracting the best talent.

And as for Vero, what else can you say about her?

She’s one of the greatest players of all time.

Milan have a really solid, good group of players, and Vero’s addition to the squad will only make them stronger.

Do the Milan Women have any youth squads?

They do now. For the first time in their history, the team will have a Primavera squad. Prior to then, they only had an Under-12, Under-15, and Under-17 squads for the girls.

Before then, Milan had been one of the few Serie A teams not to have a youth squad. They were even fined by the FIGC for this.

The team now has a Primavera squad for their girls and they will make their debut in the youth competitions this season.

From the team themselves:

Starting from the 2021-2022 season, the women’s sector of AC Milan will have a new team. The Youth Team (Primavera Team) will be competing in the next Campionato Primavera 1 and will be coached by Davide Corti, who will be working alongside the Women’s First Team.

Corti, born on July 31st, 1971, played in the youth sector of AC Milan and made his First Team debut on November 21st, 1990 in the 2-2 Coppa Italia draw against Lecce. He then went on to play for Empoli, Pro Sesto, and Novara, before becoming an AC Milan Academy coach. Corti’s technical staff also includes goalkeeper coach Alberto Tagliabue, fitness coach Francesco Maurello and match analyst Roberto Ferrari.

And you know what? It’s about time.

Why doesn’t Milan have separate social media accounts for their women’s team?

There are a few reasons for this. The main logic behind this is that Milan believes that the women and men’s teams are the ‘same team’. Therefore, they have not created separate social media accounts for the teams because they don’t want to keep the women’s team off the main accounts.

They believe the women’s team should have the same exposure as the men’s team does and should be promoted on the main social media accounts. Therefore, this explains why there are no separate accounts for the women.

While the intentions behind this are noble, having only one account for both the men and the women has unintentional consequences. The foremost of which is the fact that the women’s content is overshadowed by the content for the men. At times, the social media team tends to drop the ball in terms of promoting the women’s games as well.

An example of this was during the lead-up to the game against Napoli Femminile. Milan’s Twitter and Instagram accounts didn’t mention a single thing about the women’s game until it was played.

Instead, promotion of the match came from other sources, e.g. other team’s accounts, the official FIGC account for Serie A Femminile, and from the fans. There was also very little lead-up to the women’s Derby della Madonnina, though it was being played the same weekend as the men’s game. While Milan’s social media team should be commended for how much they’ve improved in terms of creating content for the women, they still aren’t doing enough and need to do better.

I’ve been bothered by how bad the social media team has been at times that I actually wrote an article about it.

However, I have been told by a source that the team are ‘looking into’ creating separate social media accounts for the women’s team.

There is no ETA for when those accounts will appear though. Hopefully, we’ll see them soon.

Other things of note

• AC Milan are currently the only team in Serie A Femminile that pays pensions for their women’s team. That makes them pioneers in this regard. It also demonstrates their commitment to the women’s team as they are currently the only team in Italy that are doing this.
• Milan were also the first team to hold mixed training sessions between the men and the women. After this novel gesture, other teams in Italy will follow suit and hold mixed training sessions together too.
• Vero Boquete was named by FIFPRO as one of the eleven best footballers in the world. She is the first Milan player to win it since Kaká in 2008. Naturally, of course, she was quite humble about it and felt that she didn’t deserve the award.

How can you watch the matches of the AC Milan Women?

If you live in Italy, you can watch the matches on TimVision, and Milan TV. AC Milan also broadcasts the women’s matches live on their app, and sometimes on their Dailymotion page too. This makes the matches accessible for those who live outside the country.

Occasionally, the team’s games will be broadcast on La7, which is a free-to-air channel in Italy. However, the Rossonere will only feature on the network every once in a while. The channel will highlight one match from Serie A Femminile each week on their network. Think of it as being a lot to the BBC’s Match of The Day but only for the Italian women.

The games are free to watch too.

AC Milan will also play their first match against Hellas Verona this weekend, at 17:30 CET (8:30 am PST / 11:30 am EST).

You’ll be able to watch it on the apps and networks listed above.