Disaster. Just a complete disaster. From the management to the coaching box. No European competitions to worry about. Yes, some early season injuries but a mostly healthy squad during the second half of the season, especially the final 2-3 months. Basically what Napoli had last season (now 2 seasons ago), who rode those circumstances to a Scudetto. And Allegri couldn’t even qualify for Champions League. Some of us very much expected this from Allegri, while others were like a spurned lover, fantasizing about who this guy really was and choosing not to believe their lying eyes…
The Coach
There are lots of reasons for this past season’s failures but it would be a mistake to apply equal weight to all of them. The main culprit is management, specifically Gerry Cardinale. He doesn’t know what he’s doing as evidenced by his dismissing of Paolo Maldini, Stefano Pioli, Ricky Massara, among others, and his subsequent hiring and promoting of Giorgio Furlani, Geoffrey Moncada, and Zlatan Ibrahimović.
Massimiliano Allegri, however, might be the most egregious. Gerry Cardinale’s Redbird ownership personified in a coach and on the sideline. Furlani and Moncada, one could at least somewhat credibly argue, were unknowns and at least brought some level of upside. Zlatan? Well, he was a legend on the pitch at least. A rare opportunity to stumble into catching lightning in a bottle. But Allegri?…sheer incompetence. His Juve 2.0 days should’ve told you all what to expect but so many of you have convinced yourself his recent past had no credibility.
This whole post won’t be about Allegri, but I need to point out a few things I said over the last year or so. In my post after he was announced, after reviewing Allegri’s Juve 2.0 tenure and comparing him to Pioli over the same time, I wrote:
“I’m starting to think Allegri is going the José Mourinho route: gradually diminishing results due to a lack of managerial evolution. Meanwhile the fanbase stays delusional thinking success is around the corner as does management, trying to plug the holes by throwing money at it.
Never once did Allegri out-perform Pioli and Pioli always had less. Just to pile on and perhaps even more concerning is that he’s always had one of the highest spending teams in Serie A, even when he was with Milan the first time as well as his first go-round with Juventus…
…I’ve seen just about universal praise for the decision to bring Allegri back but I’m not convinced. Many of the same people celebrating this were the loudest ones calling for Pioli’s exit, so I don’t have a ton of confidence in their judgement.”
Then in November 2025, after the second international break and Milan’s hot start, when they started to regress some, I wrote in that Milan Wellness Check:
“So the big question as I see it is, was the downturn in quality and overall mediocre play a result of missing key players such as Rabiot and Pulisic who were major factors in the hot start, have teams begun to learn what Allegri is trying to do with this Milan, or is it a combination of the two?
I know some want to think that once the injured players get back things will get back on track but it’s not something I’m necessarily expecting. The play quality will improve, but will the whole be better? I think this is the Allegri part, along with teams adjusting, that has me the most worried.
Allegri is pretty stubborn with how he approaches the game. The formation might change, and he found something in the 3-man backline that many of us, including myself, wasn’t expecting. But he rarely gets off of a conservative gameplan, namely one that plays defense first…and second…and sometimes third, before he finally gets aggressive offensively.
An important thing to recognize is that a majority of the Milan goals have come not because Allegri has opened things up at times, it’s that Pulisic was on fire before getting injured and Leão has almost matched him when he returned from injury, picking up the slack. Pulisic has 8 goals/assists in 9 games (all comps), in 439 minutes, or a goal/assist every 54 minutes. Leão has 6 goals/assists in 8 games (all comps), in 469 minutes, or a goal/assist every 78 minutes. Allegri’s offense so far is really at the whim of an unsustainable rate of scoring mostly by 2 guys.”
That unsustainable rate line at the end of the quote, I want to dig in even a little more.
Pulisic was converting, i.e., scoring goals, at 43% (6 goals on 14 shots), with SOT at 64% (9 of 14 shots). His career rates excluding that stretch? A 14% conversion rate and a SOT rate of 42%, so an increase of 200% and 50% respectively. For Leão, although not quite as extreme, was converting 28% (5 goals on 18 shots) during that stretch, with a SOT of 56% (10 of 18 shots), compared to career averages minus that stretch of 14% conversion and 39% SOT, an increase of 100% and 44% respectively.
Allegri’s performance was poor the whole season, masked by two hot players that inflated the results early on. So it’s less about, what happened, and more about a regression to Allegri’s mean…a mean that was completely predictable and one Napoli is going to find out if they end up hiring him.
The Ownership
I could easily continue on with Allegri as there’s plenty of material, and if you want to go down memory lane, you can just go to the Archive and review all of this past season’s posts. Most have some Allegri comment or critique. But we need to move on to ownership and management before talking about what we might expect this summer and next season.
For me, this is where it really all comes down to, the root cause of all the issues. Gerry Cardinale. I can’t even say he’s a great business man because I think all the refinancing he’s doing of the loan he took to purchase Milan seem to tell a different story. It’s very…Li Yonghong. So, we’re not even really benefitting from his business acumen and we’ve seen the downward spiral of the results on the pitch since he took over, so this really is lose-lose.
*Full transparency: they have done well on the marketing side, but so have the Dallas Cowboys under Jerry Jones…the world’s most valuable sports team. They also haven’t won a championship in 30 years…
Have I mentioned Gerry fired a man, Pioli, who at the time was one of two coaches in all of Europe (the other being Pep Guardiola and that oil war chest) with a league title and 4 straight years of Champions League qualification? God, thinking about it still pisses me off. I digress but it’s still a hard pill to swallow even after these couple of years.
Anyway, if you want to know more of what I think then you can read what I wrote about Gerry and Redbird when they took over and fired Maldini (or the repost with a new intro). But the more immediate focus should be on what 3 years of complete ownership (out of 4 total years) has done to our club. Milan has gone from perennial Champions League participants to out of Champions League and Europe altogether and now thankfully (?) qualifying for Europa League? This part has a direct impact on the present and next season, so let’s move there to continue this conversation about ownership in that context…
What Now?
So, it’s becoming evident that we’re very likely going to see some major squad turnover. This is a welcome sight for many of you, but my perspective is to move more cautiously since getting the replacement correct is no guarantee. In fact, I’d say most teams get it wrong but some have large enough coffers that they just try again without much of a setback. Milan, as we’ve seen, isn’t as lucky. Throw in these morons in charge, and needless to say I’m very nervous about what’s coming next.
The squad is going to change and even with more players coming back who many of us thought were gone (their buy options are being declined), the team is going to look very different. The most likely change coming is Rafael Leão is going to be sold. To whom and for how much is anyone’s guess. The last 2 years of poor coaching has really jeopardized his stock. I’ll wait to dive into this potential move and what replacing him might look like until it’s closer to a reality, but the larger picture I want to stay on is why this move has to happen to begin with.
Gerry & Company have so poisoned the well that players are jumping ship and no one wants to stick around. Think about this for a second. Before we had young players who could’ve left for greener pastures (literally greener in terms of their wallet) but chose to stay because of the project. Because of Maldini. Because of Pioli. Now? A team full of players in their prime, who have played for Milan longer than most players play for one team in today’s game, are wanting to leave.
How do I know this? Well, a few have said so on social media and whatnot, including Leão, but the complete silence from everyone else is probably more telling. No one told Allegri goodbye, no one is re-committing to turning it around next season. Luka Modrić was almost certainly going to play one more season with Milan but is instead thinking of retirement after the World Cup since Milan didn’t qualify for Champions League (his message after the season seemed to indicate he was done).
Now as we’ve all be seeing, some of the up and coming coaches who maybe would’ve seen Milan as a spring board (we’re no longer the main destination for so many) aren’t getting close to us. Would you? An 8th and 6th place finish. Three coaches in 2 seasons and soon be on our 4th. The whole management team shown the door. I mean, who are these potential coaches even dealing with? We don’t have anyone in a sporting OR financial position to negotiate. Zlatan? Speaking of, what reputable sporting director is going to want to come here with Zlatan interfering with what they want to do or what direction they want to take the club? What a joke.
This is something I hadn’t really appreciated until this past weekend. Just how thoroughly and completely Gerry & Company have fucked this all up. Nobody wants to come here. No coaches. No players. No sporting directors. Not anybody worth having anyway. We’re toxic.
Wrap up
What a depressing state of affairs. Even worse than that is that we don’t really have anything to be optimistic about. At this point, the only way my perspective and/or mood changes around the team is if Ralf Rangnick comes. I don’t know if he’ll be good or if he’ll get the job done, but presumably he would only come if they give him the keys to the whole sporting operation and that by itself could mean Gerry maybe, just maybe, might be getting it. An indication that they know they suck and don’t want to make things worse. But I’m not holding my breath for this. You shouldn’t either.
We’ll adjust our thinking should any evidence present itself that this isn’t going to be a complete clusterfuck. But until then, prepare yourselves because the Banter Era 2.0 could be upon us…
Forza Milan
gillis