Even though AC Milan won the Serie A title in 2011 they have had a poor decade in football where they have seen major stars leave the team and Juventus take over their mantle as the strongest side in Italy.
Indeed whilst not as quite bad this Milan team is very near how poor the club were back in the 1970s. You used to look at Milan teams and your jaw would drop in the quality that was on the field; Ruud Gullit, Carlo Ancelotti, Paolo Maldini, Marco van Basten, Andriy Shevechenko, Andrea Pirlo the list is endless because Milan of the 80s and 90s and even into the 2000s were as strong and brimming of quality like Barcelona and Real Madrid.
But the 2010s were not kind to the team, football seemed to leave them behind and apart from the odd special result Milan have been quite forgetable on the European stage. They haven’t even played in the Champions League now for several years, even though that competition was supposed to be ingrained into their DNA, after all they have won it 7 times.
Currently the club are in 11th place and 21 points behind the league leaders and we are only at the half way stage of the new season. What will be even more grinding is that the club in front are their arch rivals, Inter Milan, a club where they share the same ground. Indeed everyone seems to have moved into Milan’s territory, even Inter who have, for long periods, been in Milan’s shadow and yet of course out of the two Milan’s they are the last to have won the Champions League when they triumphed in 2010.
As January announces itself Milan have hit back, well kind of. They have signed one of the great strikers of the modern game in Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Now let’s not dot around here, Ibrahimovic is a superb player, the clubs he plays for win games, win titles, win trophies and he always scores lots of goals, most of them contenders for the season. But Ibra as he is fondly known is 38 years old.
When his signing was announced there were no groans or media backlash, even at 38 the fans have got behind the player and their club. From the moment he has arrived in Milan he has been treated like a superstar, crowded by fans, with his name chanted. At 38 the Swedish player is expected to be the messiah and save the club.
His goal scoring instinct will ensure that he scores goals for the club though it is questionable how many he will be able to get. Surely the objective this season will be a European finish, the club are 8 points adrift of a Europa League position, so it isn’t impossible, But being 14 points behind a Champions League position seems a little too far this season.
One wonders if Ibrahimovic’s transfer isn’t something different? Firstly to become the voice and guide in the dressing room and then possibly get into management and for this first job to be with Milan. If his advancing years takes away his goals, we still have an incredible character, a true leader who may well be able to shape Milan’s future like he did with his goal scoring boots when he first signed for the club more than a decade ago.
The jury is out but not in Italy where the player simply can’t fail with the fans. If anything the very fact he is back at the San Siro will give this very average Milan side a boost. But how far have the club fallen getting excited over a veteran Ibrahimovic? Maybe they know something we don’t?
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