Yellow Tie

Despite my usual cautious approach to the mercato, waiting until things are official, I am pissed off. Not that I expected as much as some people did after the agreement with Mr. Bee, since I’ve maintained that there’s no actual money until the deal is official. Nor did I agree with all of the transfer targets necessarily, at least not under the current state of Milan. But we desperately needed a young, talented midfielder. Whether or not that was Kondogbia may never be known. Instead, Inter get to find out. Inter. Our cross town rivals and orchestrators of Calciopoli. We should have never even let them into the race for Kondogbia, and now he is theirs. I think it’s time to hang up the yellow tie.

Never trust a man with this many yellow ties.

Some people say the whole thing was just a smokescreen, a ruse, and that somehow Galliani is going to pull off better transfers. I would love to see that. Really, I would. Not just because Milan so desperately needs it to be true, but just because I have less than zero faith in Galliani’s capabilities anymore. It’s not enough that the Curva Sud finally came around last year and pointed their fingers at him. More recently, at the last board meeting, the shareholders had a lot of criticism of him, too. As an outsider looking in, I cannot think of someone so inept at what they are supposed to be doing, yet still has a job. It’s completely unfathomable to me.

Nevermind that we were linked with Kondogbia three years ago when we could have bought him for a cool €3m and didn't sign him then, either. It gets better, though. Kondogbia is a player represented by Doyen Sports. Bee Taechaubol has a relationship with Doyen and has offered their help to Milan, which is why there is a picture of Nelio Lucas on a plane with Galliani to go talk with Porto about Martinez last week, another Doyen represented player. So Galliani gets help from Doyen, and still can’t sign a Doyen player? Or two? Is that not the most epic transfer fail ever? 

Even with help from Doyen, he can't sign a Doyen player

What am I missing here? Inter didn’t finish that far ahead of us, they have no Europe, and Doyen are not helping them. How did they end up with Kondogbia? What could Mancini have possibly said to Kondogbia that was so much better than what Milan had to offer? I mean Milan won their trophies of their own accord, Inter not so much. Or was it more what Galliani didn’t say or offer? If we aren’t getting Ibra or Martinez, then couldn’t we pay whatever was needed to get the 22 year-old Kondogbia? Yet the result speaks volumes, not about Milan, but about Galliani. Buying overpriced players and signing them to long contracts is what he is known for, it’s what he’s always done best. But not anymore.

The fake phone thing doesn't work. You actually have to call the players to sign them.

After yet another Galliani character meltdown in February, I wrote about him being The Big Lie, and his lack of anything concrete in the mercato make his failings even more transparent. It was his long history of signing players with big wages and long contracts that got us into this spot. And then his transfer failings of the past three years made it even worse. He reportedly has the cash from Berlusconi to make these big signings, and now he can’t even do that? Aside from eating dinners and traveling on the club’s dime, what exactly is it that he is doing now? Because he’s certainly not signing important transfer targets. It may be time… no actually, I think it’s past time… to hang up the yellow tie. #GallianiOut

This post inspired by the music of Muse’s “Psycho”