Pescara 1, Milan 1: Off

Montella did well to bring mentality back to Milan, the biggest thing that we had been missing in recent years. But I’ve often wondered how much of it may have been accidental, as it’s gone missing this calendar year. Sometimes we’re missing it for the first half or the second half or for 20 minutes when an opponent scores two goals on us. And with injuries, it seemed an excuse for losing some of our form. But we had a lot of starters back today, and so there were no excuses for playing nearly 90 minutes without mentality. Everyone was just off.

Muntari can only watch with envy, knowing he once played for Milan, too

The biggest element of being off of course, was Donnarumma. His massive error in the 12th minute caused a Paletta own goal. And that wasn’t the only time he was off his line or frozen or stiff, either. Of course, he was brilliant when he needed to be most brilliant, and he seemed to shake off the early blunders, but unfortunately, we couldn’t shake off Pescara’s lead. You know, that team that are 20th on the table? With only 12 points (now 13) all season? Yeah.

Gratefully one of our 26 shots (five on goal) did go in in the 41st. Deulofeu made a great run, took a great shot, but Fiorillo parried it away. Pasalic was there to save the day, he slotted it in and leveled the score, 1-1. Clearly stunned by Muntari’s very presence, the team were slow, disjointed, and really played down to Pescara’s level. Which, if you’ll remember, is 20th on the table. It was not worth waking up at six in the morning for.

Our young hero stumbled today, but he picked himself back up in style

Kind of the same story, different opponent, different error. When we don’t have mentality, it is not a thing of beauty. The distractions of the sale of the club could be getting to them in spite of Montella’s best efforts, I don’t know. But they are going to have to borrow some mentality from an American hedge fund or something to have a chance at taking three points from Palermo and ideally from Inter in the Derby, too. Without the reinforcements we’ve needed so desperately for so long, the mentality could only get us so far. Even worse when everyone is just off.

This post inspired by the music of Joao Gilberto and Stan Getz’ “The Girl From Ipanema”

Our next match is

Milan vs. Palermo

Sunday, April 9 • 15:00 CST (9am EDT)

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