Francesco Camarda became the most recent AC Milan academy graduate to make his senior debut last Saturday, and there are plenty of players hoping to follow that path.
La Gazzetta dello Sport reported this morning that Stefano Pioli should call up as many as six players from the Primavera for tomorrow night’s game against Frosinone due to the injury crisis, and Jan-Carlo Simic should be the next to make his debut. Lapo Nava, Davide Bartesaghi, Chaka Traore and Alex Jimenez are the others.
The same source talks about the players who are waiting in the wings behind those six, starting with the Primavera starts Adam Bakoune, Filippo Scotti and Diego Sia, protagonists again this year with positive performances. Mattia Liberali and Emanuele Sala are a bit younger, but they are also demonstrating great things.
Going down the pyramid of the youth sector we come to Christian Terni’s Under 18s, second in group B. Gioele Perina, a left-footed playmaker, is one of those who is showing off the most. Born in 2006, he arrived at the Rossoneri at eight years old and has already played in the Primavera. This season he has scored 3 goals and is growing significantly.
The U17 team are the one that are in the best form in the entire side, thanks to a dominating season so far with 10 wins out of 10, the best attack and the best defence (38 goals scored, 4 conceded). Christian Comotto and Simone Lontani, born in 2008 like Camarda, are the stars as attacking midfielders and strikers respectively.
Also leading one of the strongest teams in recent years is the 2007-born right winger Lorenzo Ossola, with eight goals scored. In short, there is no shortage of talented players who could make their way through the ranks.
The big news in the academy is represented by the arrival of “Prof” Vincenzo Vergine, the new head of the youth sector, in the club. With him, Milan has decided to insist even more on the complete education of the players, taking care of their time even outside the training centre and working on all the components of training.
From performance to technique, passing through the health aspect (relating to the athlete’s psycho-physical well-being), psychological and educational-training aspects – everything will be monitored and optimised.
Just a few days ago, the staff of the Rossoneri youth sector met the coordinator of the FIGC youth national teams, Maurizio Viscidi, at Casa Milan. At the centre of the meeting promoted by the company, a shared idea of human, technical and sporting values. To raise the footballers of the future.
Going to need that U23 Serie C side (and hopefully get it promoted to Serie B which I believe is in the rules as long as ACM does not get relegated).
We’re also going to need to strike a relationship with Cremonese, for example, and maybe even pay them to take players on loan. Pay a scale based on minutes played to incentivise game time.
In reality a kid needs 4,000 to 5,000 minutes of senior playing time before he’ll be considered a real option for senior selection.
The problem is getting the 18/19 yo to that point before more players are signed and progression to the senior team becomes impossible.
Take the LB position, for example. Bartesaghi is maybe a season from having the experience required, if he’s playing Serie B now, but he’s sitting on the bench. They’re going to sign Miranda at an age at which he’d be getting a 4 year deal. As things stand that places Bartesahgi as 3 in line with about 2 seasons of match time required and no clear way to get that time. This is the cycle that makes progression from Primavera to ACM virtually non-existent at this point in time.
Great post!
We also need a coach willing to play his youngsters.