Arrigo Sacchi has praised AC Milan for their performance during last night’s Coppa Italia win over Cagliari, and he believes that the season can be salvaged despite a difficult last couple of months.
Milan secured passage into the quarter-finals of the cup with a comfortable 4-1 win over Claudio Ranieri’s side last night, setting up a meeting with either Atalanta or Sassuolo at San Siro next week to play for a semi-final spot.
Head coach Stefano Pioli chose to name quite an interesting starting line-up which featured the likes of Antonio Mirante, Jan-Carlo Simic, Alex Jimenez, Luka Romero and Chaka Traore against an also-rotated Cagliari side.
It was two veterans (at least in relative terms) who got things going, with Theo Hernandez setting up Luka Jovic twice to secure a 2-0 half-time lead, while Chaka Traore then got his first goal from the club and Rafael Leao grabbed one off the bench as well.
Sacchi spoke in a column for La Gazzetta dello Sport and he assessed both the victory last night at home and the current moment that the team are experiencing after a rollercoaster 2023.
“Milan’s comfortable victory over Cagliari in the Coppa Italia, despite being achieved with a completely revolutionised lineup full of young players, is an unequivocal message: the Rossoneri, in 2024, want to recover lost ground,” he said.
“I saw a serious team that honours the name it bears. In the first part of the season, Milan showed that they were very fluctuating: there was a lack of continuity of performance and in terms of results the Rossoneri paid with their exit from the Champions League.
“It is difficult to establish what these ups and downs depend on. The injuries that decimated Pioli’s team certainly had a great deal of influence, but in my opinion most of the reasons for this trend lie in the summer transfer market.
“When you buy so many foreign players, not used to the Italian league and perhaps returning from less than brilliant seasons, it is normal to have some assembly problems: the players have to adapt not only to a new style of football, but also to a new social situation.
“In these cases patience would be needed, but who has that in football? Nobody. Today’s managers and fans demand everything right away, and instead they taught me that nine months are needed to give birth to a child…
“The first thing you need when building a team is to have a clear project to follow, and then you need to look on the market for those elements that are functional to the coach’s ideas and you need to evaluate them, even before their technical qualities, for their human characteristics.
“In Italy, however, the feet are looked at first before the head. When I signed a footballer, I followed him for a long time, I wanted to know everything about him, even what his eating habits were. With Rijkaard, for example, we acted like this. This way I was sure I had a reliable player available.
“All things considered, however, Milan are third in the table and, if they straighten out their course, still have the possibility of catching up with the two fugitives Inter and Juve. They are not impressing in terms of play, this is true, but we cannot speak of a disastrous season or one below expectations, unless these were to win the Champions League and even the Scudetto.
“Furthermore, the door to the Europa League has been opened to the Rossoneri, an important and prestigious showcase. Milan have never won it, an extra incentive to give two hundred percent in this event and to show improvements in terms of manoeuvring.
“What is surprising about Pioli’s team is that, at times, it doesn’t seem like a collective: you see players scattered around the pitch without a common thread linking them. Not always, though. In fact, when they manage to play ‘as a team’, the Rossoneri are able to stand up to anyone.
“It’s about working hard in training, to make the players understand the basic concepts that the coach wants to convey, then also on the kids’ heads.
“Milan is Milan, this should never be forgotten: it has a magnificent history behind it and must try to carry forward its values. I believe he can do it, as long as there is clarity of intent and that the club is always on the coach’s side, supporting him and helping him.
“He, that is Pioli, has proven to be a valid coach, with great passion and uncommon intelligence, but he has to change something if he wants to achieve the leap in quality. I don’t expect big arrivals from the market.
“Some new faces will land at Milanello, that’s fine, but that’s not where the improvements can come from, also because whoever is bought in January needs a lot of time to get in shape and in tune with the whole group.
“I think that Milan already has the potential and the solutions to improve. In the meantime, the recovery of some injured players can help Pioli, then we need to ensure that team spirit and motivation increase, as well as of course the game.
“If the Rossoneri reached third place with an intermittent rhythm, why can’t they hope to make a leap forward?”
pulisic and Romero will be switching from the attacking midfield then Noah Okafor will be chukwueze deputy while Chaka Traore will be leao deputy