With Milan sitting down with Brescia for possible deffered payment of Tonali’s 25M Split as 15M option on loan and  10M bonus rumours have now emerged that Brescia are not willing to discount Tonali’s asking price and are looking for new buyers for the player.

Tonali had a very mixed season that there would be good arguments from his supporters and his naysayers alike on whether he was good for the team or not.  Let’s take a look at a few reasons as to why Milan should redeem Tonali.

1. Potential at the age of 21

Tonali is one of the youngest and brightest prospects in Italian football. Finishing 13^th in the Golden Boy award 2019 Tonali had high expectations when he finished the 2019/20 season at Brescia. There was a derby in the market for Tonali and finally his boyhood club Milan snapped him up.

While Tonali was used in a 4-3-3 by coach Corini at Brescia and was the undisputed starter, Milan played a 4-2-3-1 and had competition in the form of Kessie and Bennacer. The roles differed vastly, at Brescia playing as a regista Tonali was flanked by 2 mezzala’s and they shared the defensive burden.

At Milan Tonali played in a double pivot where Pioli used him as the deep lying playmaker along with duties of maintaining a narrow 2^nd line of defense as well as press opponents. This exposed him to much more duties than usual and at his age it was a bit too much. However as the season progressed we could see that Tonali was settling into the role more until injuries hampered his season and Meite was started to be preffered by Pioli.

• Penetrative passing and passing option

One of Tonali’s distinctive traits at Brescia was to play penetrating pass that would split the lines. We got quite a demonstration of this vs Lille when Tonali played on Rebic for his eventual assist for Castillejo. His ability to generate passes at certain angles are also an asset.

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I mentioned earlier how Tonali slowly grew into his role. One example of how he was good for acting as a DLP or even helping to bring the ball out from the back was when Kalulu was pressed by Cagliari front 3. Tonali easily acted as a 3^rd passing option and helped Milan beat the first line of press before he went on a run to beat his marker.

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• His Athletic data

Modern footballers are extremely quick and most of the sprint speeds are recorded by forward players or the full backs. For a Defensive midfielder Tonali has recorded one of the quickest sprint speed in Serie A against Fiorentina when he recorded 35.03 kmp/h. This data shows how athletically Tonali has very sound physical ability.

• The homegrown UEFA role

When fielding a 23 man squad, every team are expected to field 8 homegrown players. According to UEFA homegrown players are defined as those who have spent 3 years in the relevant club’s country (in this case it is Italy) between the ages 15-21.

With Milan having lost Donnarumma and the future of Caldara and Alessio in limbo, Milan would need to fill the quota with Primavera players. With Tonali Milan can have a quality addition to the homegrown quota that can compete in the squad.

• The Player actually wants to play for Milan

Maldini in the past has spoken about how players are asked to make an economic sacrifice when signing for Milan owing to poor finances and FFP issues. The “will” of the player is paramount in these situations and Tonali is a fan of Milan since his childhood and the player wants to be part of Milan in its resurgence.

FINAL VERDICT

While we can only qualitatively speak about the player, the fans cannot speak to the financial situation of the club and it is only something the people in power can handle.

The prowess of Maldini, Massara and Gazidis in the market , making the squad competitive with small investments, have shown the tifosi that Milan can be great again and as a fan I trust in them whatever be their final decision.a

With more wide television broadcasting, football in the 90s was slowly starting to peak with Italian football at its zenith. Calcio 90 as it is fondly called in Italy saw Italian football producing some of the finest footballers to grace the turf. Roberto Baggio, Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, Paolo Cannavaro and the list goes on.

A huge chunk of this was facilitated by the competitiveness of the league with Napoli led by Diego Armando Maradona and Sampdoria led by Mancini and Vialli. Perhaps one of the greatest feats in that period for Italian football was Sampdoria beating Italian giants Napoli, Milan, Inter and Juventus to the Scudetto.

With this article we take a look at “Super Sampdoria” a meteoric rise of a team that dominated Italian football before falling.

HISTORY

Sampdoria did not exist as a club until 1945. However on 12^th August 1946, 2 Genoaese clubs, Ginnastica Comunale Sampierdarenese and Ginnastica Andrea Doria merged toghether to form U.C Sampdoria.  

Following years of mid-table finishes in the 60s, Sampdoria fell into financial trouble and later had to sell their players without adequate investment without investments like the unpopular sale of Bruno Mora to Juventus. Sampdoria took part in the Inter-Cities Fair’s Cup (now defunct) but couldn’t get past round of 32. And even with the arrival of Luis Suarez, Giovanni Lodetti and a young Marcelo Lippi Sampdoria was constantly flirting with relegation in the 70’s before the eventual happed in 1976.

MANTOVANI: THE SAVIOUR

In 1977 Sampdoria was purchased by business man Paulo Mantovani who promised fans immediate promotion and the dream: A scudetto win.  On his 4^th managerial appointment Mantovani achieved his first promise: a promotion to Serie A under the coach Renzo Ulivieri in the 1981/82 season.

Sampdoria won the first major silverware in their 84/85 season beating AC Milan in a 2 legged final of the Coppa Italia final under the tutelage of the coach Eugenio Bersillini. With heavy investment from Mantovani, Sampdoria general manager Paolo Borea was able to bring in Liam Brady, Graeme Souness, Luca Pellegrini, Roberto Mancini, Mannini and Fausto Salsano. This brought in a perfect blend of youth and experience.

If Sampdoria fans thought this was this was the highest they could achieve they were in for a surprise.

VUJADIN BOSKOV: THE CONQUERER

In 1986 Mantovani brought in the Ascoli trainer Vujadin Boksov and together they signed future club legends Vialli, Pagiluca, Toninho Cerezo giving the team an extra edge.  The team set about winning 2 back to back Coppa Italia titles defeating Torino in 87/88 and Napoli in 88/89. This automatically qualified them for the European Cup winners’ Cup and while they lost the Cup in 89 they defeated Anderlecht 2-0 in the final in 1990 with 2 goals from Gianluca Vialli in Extra Time.

SCUDETTO AND EUROPEAN CUP FINALS

The winning habit did not end with this. Sampdoria sent shockwaves in Italian football when they won the scudetto defeating Lecce 3-0 at home and winning the league with 1 game to spare. This at a time when Inter were scudetto champions, Milan was dominating Europe, Napoli was its peak with Maradona and Juventus had invested big on Baggio and Julio Cesar. Mantovani had kept one his promises and Sampdoria which had never won gone beyond 4^th finally won a scudetto

With Sampdoria winning the Scudetto they qualified to the UEFA European Cup. They defeated Rosenborg, Budapest, Red Star Belgrade, and Anderlecht and faced Cryuff’s Barcelona in the final.

END OF THE CYCLE

The 1991/92 season started with silverware for Sampdoria beating Roma in the Super Coppa but their Scudetto defense fizzed out as they finished 6^th in the season. However supporters had another reason to the thrilled. Sampdoria was scheduled to play Barcelona in a UEFA European Cup Final at Wembley.

A tight match ensured with Cryuff’s Barcelona playing free flowing football while Sampdoria played a cautious game-plan and countered and while it went to extra time both teams missed golt edged chances to win it for their team. In the end, Ronald Koeman hit a free kick past Pagiluca to break Sampdoria hearts and send the European trophy for the 1^st time out of 5 times to the Camp Nou

Boskov, Vialli, Pari, Cerezo all departed and Mantovani responded by signing Ruud Gullit, Alberigo Evani and David Platt. However David Mantovani passed away from long standing illness and Sampdoria won their 4^th Coppa Italia as a tribute for the great man.

Sampdoria had 2 more 8^th place finishes before they went into relegation and need further investment from different owners to bring the club to where we know them today.

TACTICAL ANALYSIS OF SAMPDORIA AGAINST BARCELONA  

ANALYSIS

Barcelona on paper started with a 4-3-3 formation with Laudrup acting as a false 9 while Sampdoria played a 4-4-2 with Lanna as a libero and Mancini-Vialli forming a lethal strike partnership.

Barcelona on the field were practically inspired by Rinus Michels’ total football Ajax thanks to their legendary player and coach Johan Cryuff.

Barcelona played a 3-4-3 on the ball forming a midfield diamond with Guardiola acting as a deep lying playmaker while acting as a shield to make sure the team does not lose shape.

Both Guardiola and Koeman were tasked as playmakers from midfield whenever Barcelona got the ball.

Barcelona pressed high, maintained a high line and used Koeman or Guardiola to bring the ball out from the back.

Miachel Laudrup acted as a false 9 dropping into half allowing Salinas or Stoichkov to move infield while Laudrup acted as a makeshift Trequartista.

Bakero and Eusebio often floated while Juan Carlos looked to stay wide. Barcelona formed passing triangles on the wings which facilitated quicker passing out from the back.

Sampdoria meanwhile employed a variation of the catenaccio employed by majority of the teams from Italy at that period called as the Zona Mista or “The Italian way”

Sampdoria were also a threat from corners with Lombardi forcing a save of Zubizaretta

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They employed a mix of man marking and zonal marking esp against a false 9 like Laudrup to negate the zonal aspect of Cryuff’s aspect.

Sampdoria except Mancini and Vialli sat deeper employed a passive pressing approach and tried to suck Barcelona into their usual high line. Once they won the ball back the sweeper, Lanna would launch vertical balls into Mancini or Vialli.

However employing an aggressive press Barcelona were able to neutralize the Sampdoria’s Center backs not allowing them to hit accurate long balls by having Laudrup and/or Salinas, Stoichkov to press the CB’s

A lot of this pressing did leave space between Barcelona lines something Mancini tried to thrive in

In the second half with Barcelona players more tired playing a very taxing style of football spaces started opening up and Sampdoria started counter-attacking on their left targeting Mundo putting Lombardo on a 1v1 with him

Vialli then would make infield runs to collect through balls behind the Barcelona defense hit by Pari or Mancini and run through on goal

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CONCLUSION

Sampdoria was one of those teams that rode the way of the good times of Italian football. Whether Sampdoria can get back to the top of the Italian hierarchy is a different question given how the Milanese clubs and Juventus have un-matched spending power and resources but if anybody benefits from Samp’s rise its Italian Calcio.

With the 2020/21 season set to culminate on Sunday, Milan, after an electric start to the season have one more matchday to save their season and it is a daunting trip to their bogey team, Atalanta in Bergamo.

Milan fans need no mentioning of the score the last time Milan went to Bergamo Illicic bagging a brace. Milan are however in a desperate need of a win against Atalanta.

Milan don’t need to look back far to see when their last win came at Bergamo. They defeated Atalanta 3-1 in 2019 thanks to a brace from Milan’s in-form striker Piatek and a long distance shot from Hakan cancelling out Remo Freuler’s open.

Mid-week Juve pushed Atalanta to a 2-1 loss in the Coppa Italia final with Atalanta yet again missing out on silverware in another brilliant yet underwhelming season.

Here are some Tactical Similarities used by Gattuso and Pirlo to defeat Atalanta

CEDE POSESSION

Atalanta are a team that enjoys lion’s share possession and has the physical and technical qualities to knock it around an opposition defense, even parked buses that any team that tries to win the ball back with pressing they can get steam rolled

Pirlo and Gattuso however were content with Letting Atalanta keep the ball and knock it horizontally.

In the 2019 match Gattuso’s Milan had 41% possession while Pirlo’s Juve had 43% on Wednesday.

4-5-1 AND AN AVERAGE LINE

Of course, owing to the difference in technical and physical quality Pirlo’s Juve was better than Rino’s Milan and hence were able to play a higher line than what Rino did.

But compared to Juve’s regular standards they played a deeper line than before as shown in the graphic below and did not commit numbers forward. If Cuardado ventured forward on the right, bentancur and Mckennie stayed behind to prevent Atalanta’s lightning quick counters.

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When Milan played against Atalanta they played a much deeper line and rarely ventured forward especially after taking the lead.

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Both teams in terms of defensive structure played a narrow 4-5-1 that at times looked like a 4-4-1-1 keeping only one player forward with a second striker playing off the number 9. For Juventus it was Cristiano while for Milan it was Piatek.

PREVENTING WIDE OVERLOADS

One main feature of Atalanta was to numerically create advantages towards the wide areas of the pitch. For example whenever the ball was hoisted forwards Duvan Zapata would peel off towards the left and he would be joined by Gosens, Pessina and De Roon or Palomino.  Creating this advantage would mean more passing combinations for Atalanta to exploit and therefore be lethal.

Pirlo countered this with their narrow 4-5-1 structure as explained before. They had their wide players drop in while the full back, the concerned CB and one player of the Double Pivot making it a 4v4 or a 5v4 not allowing Atalanta ot build on the flanks.

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For Gattuso it was more of the same with Alessio, Rodriguez,Paqueta, Hakan and at times bakayoko creating a 5v3 or a 4v3 to prevent the numerical advantage.

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NOT PLAYING OUT FROM THE BACK

One big feature of Milan’s loss in January was how Atalanta would press Milan whenever Milan had a Goal Kick or a free kick in their defensive 3^rd. Atalanta would press Milan and Milan would lose the ball.

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Both Gattuso and Pirlo who otherwise preferred to play out from the back preferred a more direct approach choosing to kick it out to Cristiano (Piatek in Milan’s case).

The one time Juve played out from the back, they paid for it with Atalanta’s equalizer from malinovskyi.

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DIRECT, VERTICAL FOOTBALL AND COUNTER-ATTACK

Atalanta are a high press side and hence they play a very high line to facilitate their press. This leaves a lot of space behind the defense for the opposition to exploit.

Liverpool with Klopp used Salah and Mane exploited this feature and subjected Atalanta to a 5-0 loss.

Juventus chose the similar route chose to counter through Kulusevski and Chiesa  which gave them their first goal. Cuardado made a clearance which was a vertical ball to Ronaldo and it caught out Atalanta and Juve countered before Atalanta could get men behind.

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Milan in 2019 didn’t have the quick players it had today so therefore it had to rely on vertical balls or diagonal balls from Hakan or Rodriguez and it was one such ball that led to the ball.

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WHAT I THINK MILAN SHOULD DO

Of course while Milan’s on paper formation will be a 4-2-3-1 I believe we should defend in a 4-4-1-1 formation with Rebic behind Leao and Hakan acting as a Left Midfielder.

Milan should patiently wait for Atalanta to break down and tire them out by not giving space and looking for any opportunity to counter attack.

Theo and Calabria should be act as defensive full-backs unless there is an oppurtuity to counter attack.

In terms of marking Leao or Rebic should play close to De Roon and Toloi as they are prone to easily losing their man and would be helpful in counter-attacks.

It would have been ideal for Milan to have Mandzukic playing as the #9 but since Mandzukic isn’t fit enough Leao would have the duty of holding the ball up.

A key duel will be between Kjaer and Zapata. A player even De Ligt cannot handle Kjaer’s experience and physical trait will come to the fore which makes it extra important for Saelemaekers and Calabria to prevent Atalanta creating numerical advantage on Milan’s right flank.

Of Course defending deep and relying on counter attacks cannot stop an individual piece of brilliance like Malinovskyi hitting it from distance but that’s when Milan needs its goalkeeper Donnarumma to perform one last time if he is not extending his contract

A trip to Torino beckoned for Milan after their historic win at Juventus in a turn of fortunes as Milan gained the upper hand in the race for Champions League spot for next season. With teams playing simultaneously, Milan had the task of winning at another stadium in Turin, the Grand Torino.

Flashbacks of Milan’s 2-0 loss haunted the fans but the morale boost after the 3- victory at the Allianz had Milan fans positive.

LINE-UP

Milan fielded a weakened line-up without the evergreen Zlatan Ibrahimovic who was injured mid-way through the Juventus match and Saelemaekers whose accumulation of yellow cards earned him a suspension.

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For Torino, Davide Nicola benched star striker Belotti and their key players such as Rincon, Verdi and Sanabria perhaps keeping in mind they have Spezia at the weekend, which was a more important game.

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MORE OR LESS THE SAME FROM TURIN

Pioli stuck to the same game-plan that brought him the success against Juve. He fielded Diaz, Hakan and Castillejo as the triumvirate behind the roaming striker Rebic who ran the channels and hustled Torino’s back 3. Pioli struck the right balance with his teammate chosing caution over aggression (before the match) where he was content for the opposition to push high up while Milan pressed and countered and Torino took the bait.

THE PLAN TO OVERCOME THE 3-5-2

With a 4-2-3-1 Milan’s midfield often seemed to get overloaded whenever opposition teams play a 5 man midfield especially on the center of the pitch.

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To counter this Pioli as I mentioned above fielded Hakan and Diaz, 2 attacking midfielders leaving the left wing vacant. Whenever Milan won the ball Diaz, Hakan and Castillejo would dart forward occupying space rather than an assigned position. Whenever Milan built from the back one of Hakan or Diaz would drop into midfield while one of them stay top to support Rebic. This is a clear example of Milan’s “fluid formation” setup where the team principles are centered on zones rather than positions.

One of the key features of Pioli’s game in Fiorentina was the formation of Passing Diamonds. Milenkovic would push up and with 2 midfielders and a forward, fiorentina would form a passing diamond. Milan given so much space by Torino, were easily forming them all over the pitch to beat the press

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MILAN’S PRESSING

One of the key ideas behind Pioli’s Milan had been Milan’s pressing and Milan pressed Torino out of the park.

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From horizontal pressing to the build up from the 3^rd goal from Kessie Milan forced Torino into errors and moved the ball with quick vertical passes

It can be seen from the pressing stats how Milan were so effective in pressing. Kessie topped in pressure % ( the amount of pressing done which was successful). Kessie topped the charts with 83.3% with Rebic coming 2^nd with 50% and Kjaer/Tomori coming a joint 3^rd.

TORINO’S GAME PLAN AND GAP IN DEFENSE

Initially Torino’s idea was to defend in a 5-2-3 formation isolating Bennacer with pressing traps and defend deep but with Milan taking the lead they had to push forward.

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Torino usually countered through either Simone Zaza or Wilfred Singo trying to take advantage of the space left by the advancing Theo. To push Milan deep into their own half and press, Nicola had Bremer overlap and join the midfield to try and press Hakan along with joining the attack. Mandragora would compensate for the numbers sitting deep and acting as the anchor

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A huge problem torino faced was the gap between Torino’s Center-back and the Left Center-Back which got breached more than thrice ultimately ending in Lyanco fouling Samu Castillejo for the penalty.

TORINO’S MISTAKE

One of the main questions from yesterday’s match I had was why did Torino press up so high even when they were 4-0 down ? Usually teams that chase a score of a 2-1 or a 3-1 or even a 3-2 press high up the pitch leaving only 1 defender behind but Torino were pressing Milan even when they were 5-0 down.

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You can see from below chart that Torino’s line was as high 60 metres up the match, like how a star studded team chasing a game against minnows would play. All Milan had to do was wait for Torino to come into their half, break up play and launch quick counters with vertical passes.

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THE FALSE 9

One of the advantages of a false 9 is that the defender does not have a fixed target to mark and thus it causes confusion and the defender to be drawn out of position. The danger is that intelligent defenders can easily nullify the false 9 (unless he is a Messi or similar) and make him redundant.

However against Torino the false 9, Ante Rebic, ran rings around Torino’s defense. He drew defenders out, scored a hat trick and crossed well for giving an assist for Theo.

ATHELTIC STATS

Here are Milan’s athletic stats for the game

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Rafael Leao’s 34 kmph seems to have been the run he made to catch up to Meite’s forward pass and put it on a plate for Rebic to score.

As usual kessie covers the most distance in the game, the engine that he has been kessie has been by far Milan’s best player this season.

A short while after Milan huffed and puffed to a victory against Genoa at the San Siro, the New York Times broke a sensational news that a rumoured super league which has been on the horizon a couple of times could come to fruition as soon as that evening.

Naturally Social media descended into chaos, opinions split and a lot of debating took in the last 24 hours.

As a milan I thought I would like to compile my thoughts on why as a Milan fan I support this Move.

FFP

The main reason why Milan’s rise to the top gets delayed is FFP. Although Milan have owners with adequate capital UEFA’s FFP rules prevent Milan from investing.

However this rule has not been applied in a uniform manner to all. Clubs like City, PSG, Barcelona (who are in a mountain of debt as against Milan’s minimal debt) spend €100-200M year on year with no sanctions from the “Fair Play watchdog”. If the super league idea goes forward, FFP will be removed and Milan can invest into good upcoming players just like the days of Berlusconi.

STRUCTURAL CHANGES AND STAGNATION

With the current system of Serie A, no Italian club earns enough money to challenge the big clubs. Juve who earn the biggest amount in Italy are not even in top 10 richest clubs in the world and it shows how Italian football is far behind commercially. If Milan are to ever circumvent FFP and challenge for the top with a stagnant league structure and extensive red Tapeism in the FIGC then it’s never gonna happen.

With clubs projected to recieve upto €3.5B a year, it will help Milan and Inter to make a new stadium and have a good management structure and good team (on and off the pitch) inside the club

DEVELOPMENT OF YOUTH ?

With Milan having money to invest, they can finally invest in the Primavera and develop players and bring in the best players in the world through the famous academy.

CONCLUSION

In Conclusion, there is a lot of aversion to the idea with UEFA trying every measure to re-gain it’s monopoly on the premier competition that is the Champions League. Yes it would alienate the smaller club and the huge funnel of money to these smaller clubs would die and clubs not in the super league could find it hard.

Maybe clubs esp the 12 founding members are more interested in using the Super League as a tool to gain certain powers when UEFA plans to reform the current tournament format.

Milan got back to winning ways against Fiorentina at the Artemio Franchi with a gritty 3-2 win in a well fought match. Here is a tactical analysis of the match.

LINE-UPS

Milan lined up in their usual 4-2-3-1 formation while Fiorentina lined up in an unusual 4-4-2 formation basically to press Milan further up the field while not compromising space in the wings if Milan counter attacks

FIORENTINA ON AND OFF THE BALL.

Off the ball Fiorentina maintained a midfield double pivot and 2 wide men and defended in a 4-4-2 formation with Ribery and Vlahovic pressing Milan’s 2 center-backs.

On the ball Fiorentina played a assymetric 3-4-2-1 with Milenkovic and Pezella staying as the center-backs and Martinez and Caceres pushing forward as the full backs. Esseyric and Ribery played behind Vlahovic.

RESPECT FOR RIBERY

While Ribery may be at the far end of his career, Ribery has proven that he is no spent force and needs to be respected. Pioli certainly did that and assigned his best player in the form of Frank the Tank Kessie to follow Ribery like a shadow wherever he goes. Kessie kept Ribery quiet for a good part of the game but was slow to react to his run from outside the box for Fiorentina’s second goal.

FIORENTINA’S PRESS AND MILAN’S COUNTER

Fiorentina like all recent teams who pressed Milan out of the park, tried to stop Milan from passing out from the back. They had Vlahovic and Ribery press the center-backs and Pulgar press Kessie.

Milan tried to break this press by passing towards Dalot and then using Kjaer to quickly switch play and have interplay between Theo and Hakan who would break free of the pressing of Bonaventura or Pulgar.

FIORENTINA’S HIGH LINE

Once again Fiorentina’s idea was to press and therefore they played a high line and this was easily pierced by Kjaer with a long ball over the the top for Zlatan’s goal.

CONCLUSION

It was bracing to see a Milan so inconsistent come back from 2-1 down to win 3-2. Hopefully this provides the team with confidence to power through the last 10 games and confirm the Champions League spot or even Win the the scudetto.