Pioli’s cycle at Milan was born out of necessity normalization.
In the summer of 2019, Milan was substantially refounded by Maldini-Boban, with six additions (Theo, Leao, Benna, Krunic, Duarte, Rebic) and a change of leadership on the bench. Fifth place, 1 point from the Champions League, was not enough for Gattuso to earn reconfirmation and Marco Giampaolo took over.
We therefore arrived at November 2019: our starting team was essentially 5/11ths (6 counting Romagnoli) the team that will win the Scudetto in Reggio Emilia in May 2022; but the worst coach in our history, and by detachment, was guiding her to fourteenth place. Pioli’s moment therefore arrived: Spalletti was not released by Inter, other candidates were less convincing and the Parma coach who said he was headed to Genoa (Viperetta side) was intercepted and, after a short casting, hastily placed on the Rossoneri bench . Paolo-Zvone assumed their responsibilities, and in spite of the #pioliout they went straight for the (probably) only path that could be taken at that moment.
Inter player, former Inter coach, after Florence’s self-exoneration Pioli was looking for an unlikely relaunch at a high level: his Italian translation of the greatest trends of Anglo-Teutonic football, therefore gegenpressingverticality and unpredictability on the outside, had performed well for Lazio, Inter and Fiorentina only for short periods, resulting in an obscene, unproductive and unwatchable mess peppered with dozens of injuries over a medium period of time.
For Milan, Stefano was the right man at the right time, and for him Milan was an ideal world to land in. Arriving at the moment of maximum friction between Gazidis and the technical area, he immediately placed himself in the middle, convincing Elliot’s manager to confirm him despite a mediocre start. Pioli showed that a Rangnick was not needed: because he could be one himself.
Not that the initial results were very inspiring: ready and set, after 1 month the 0-5 in Bergamo arrived. But the stop due to Covid came providentially and in the forced break the manager’s management skills emerged. The team’s change of gear, combined with the many sincere messages from the players in these days of farewell, are incontrovertible evidence of his work. Ibra’s additions, Kjaer’s yes, were fundamental, as was Maldini’s support. But Pioli also built his fortunes on his own, taking advantage of the unrepeatable opportunity offered by the most fake championship ever: with empty stadiums and the risk of postponement always lurking, and a difficult social situation, the pressure was minimal, and not there was no expectation. Memorable, iconic, founding the 4-2 against Juventus on 7 July 2020: 0-2 hunchback until the 60th minute, rationally correct and incontrovertible, the result of technical-tactical values. Then a team that was literally non-existent, disappeared or rather never appeared, rose like a fiery dawn: brief, splendid, inexorable, ushering in a magnificent day.
Pioli’s Milan was probably this: an irrational flash in history.
The banner of useful results in the Covid championship gave the coach the opportunity to work calmly, strengthening his position. After a short summer, with the addition of Tonali, with Maldini and an Ibrahimovic in a state of grace always at our side, we grew to win the 2021-22 winter title: ephemeral, but significant. In those months probably Pioli’s best Milan: a mix of mental lightness and power, of excessive physical power and tactical courage. And an unbreakable condition, such as the scalp taken home (we took that of Inter, Napoli and Lazio with Theo’s iconic goal in the 92nd minute): that of Underdog. Juve, Atalanta, Spezia and Inter brought us back into line; in particular the 0-2 suffered at the Picco was terrible, a disturbing precursor to some of the crazy, absurd, inexplicable technical-tactical Caporettos that would follow.
10 goals against the Turin team, and the 2-0 against Bergamo allowed Pioli his first goal: bringing Milan back to the Champions League with a second place.
The summer of the releases saw the landing in Milan of Mike Maignan, Oliviero and Ale Florenzi. Turbulence until August 23rd, then the whistle to start the season marked the start of the first fundamental outburst pioliana, a trademark: 12 consecutive useful results, of which 10 wins and 2 comeback draws against Juventus and Inter. Yet at the end of November, the infirmary filled up, another trademark: Milan lost 3 games of the last 7 of the first leg. Drama, depression but also a return to the ideal habitat of the Parma coach, that of the underdog losers.
The rest is history: the Giroud derby, the 4 draws and as many more wow no of Inter, Radu’s madness, Sandro’s goal at the Olimpico. Fiorentina, Verona, Atalanta and Reggio Emilia: Pioli is on fire, all of us with him. There isn’t much rationality to add: from dawn to the wonderful day we experienced, everything is written in our hearts and too many words can only ruin the feeling.
The last 2 seasons have instead been a sad, dark sunset. Pioli’s Milan, what we can say True, the one to which his legacy and also much of professional opinion is linked, died slowly in the autumn of 2022. Juventus and Inter were defeated, and the Champions League group passed, after 10 years, with a double 4-0 to Zagreb and Salzburg. Maldini renewed Pioli’s contract, still acclaimed by the public and above all by the ownership which had changed in the meantime and was slowly evolving towards the current wavering entity.
Then an increasingly pitch darkness, which is tiring to write. The writer has always, unfortunately and inevitably, done the Cassander on Pioli and on piolism for personal reasons. I have never liked the good Stefano (as a coach), since the days of Bologna. What should I do.
But when the time came for the crack, the sadness and depression of those who know that Destiny is sealed also came to me. I say it: I never believed that Milan could repeat the feat of winning again with Pioli on the bench. I can’t describe the darkness of the last two years, because I largely avoided it by skipping entire months of it. I didn’t die in the field: I died before you.
The final rankings, as well as the Champions League semi-final, are the concrete and tangible example that without a good story, enthusiasm and exploits, and an effective and coherent narrative, everything that is achieved in football apart from victory is absolute nothingness . And no one has been able, nor will they be, to narrate Milan 2023-2024 in a positive way. Pioli led us to be slaughtered by Inter, in 6 derbies that will weigh on our mood for at least the next 15 years, and our remnants mocked by various rabble to the tune of epic goals. What is incredible about our journey is only the resilience with which the group regrouped around the Parma area when collapse seemed inevitable; only to drag itself to a depressing, demeaning, obscene figure against Roma in the Europa League.
Stefano Pioli was a ready, useful, successful and long-lived coach. However, the coach, who became coach, is also the leader under whose guidance the Milan that we have known, admired, contested, and loved in all its forms, both winning and losing, has totally and fatally changed its nature. During Pioli’s management the ‘Milan DNA’ has changed. It’s true, such a change is only partly due to Stefano’s work. But every era has its symbol, and Pioli is one of this one.
We have all experienced debacles and goleades in our history, but never with this systematicity, with this extent and against adversaries of all kinds; we all have the scars of some painful European exit, but the most disfiguring ones will remain the last.
Until 2019 MILAN evoked dreams and images of spectacular football combined with defensive pragmatism, in Europe more than in Italy. And I underline ‘evoked’, we have not always been up to par, we have not always been this way.
At the end of Pioli’s five-year term only the smiles of his players and managers remain; but we no longer have dreams, the images that remain are those of a disconcerting mass 1vs1, to be repeated like hell in every situation: without rationale, without purpose. In Europe our status is that of any Monk. As I wrote at the beginning of the Parma native’s previous experiences: we arrive at the end of piolism as an obscene, unproductive, unwatchable mess peppered with dozens of injuries.
Pioli has gathered a Brancaleone army of veterans of the banter era (including fans), of legends unable to have an impact in the present, of managers who are not very Italian and not very sporty, of neo-idols, of young and old pressed and stressed by memories , from the past, from the comparison with the Epic but also with the Odyssey of a club that came to equal Real Madrid in Legend, and then managed for several years like Monza. And he put them all together with skill and cunning, getting under the skin especially of the younger ones, seizing the unrepeatable assist of the “reset” of a tragicomic season, due to Covid, and using it to score a memorable goal.
The price to pay: the total loss of an identity. Milan emerged from the Parma team’s five-year period totally disconnected, empty and devoid of soul. Pioli was the incredible trait d’union between a losing and mediocre Milan, a hungry and winning Milan, and a frivolous and non-competitive Milan.
It was true, historic, unforgettable, a beautiful victory. The Glory, however, profuse and flaunted even in the company greeting statement, will unfortunately wane quickly.
On the other hand, it is not us who certify Pioli’s overall unexceptional status but, alas, his own allies, admirers, lovers: replacing him with Fonseca.
Larry
