AC Milan-Barcelona Preview: Sorry, Allegri

After putting a young and talented center back in a car on Wednesday to send him to AC Milan, and saying goodbye to Higuain from Atlanta while the Argentinian striker was in Turin, Allegri’s Juventus struggled to pull off a penalty win against an MLS All Star team. Maybe it was the loss of the two players, who knows? Meanwhile, his old center back, who is known to have had disagreements with the Mister, flew from Minneapolis to Turin to make a very controversial return to the club. As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, on Saturday, his nearly forgotten former club will be facing his favorite nemesis: Barcelona. Too bad, so sad. Sorry, Allegri.

Sorry, Allegri

Barcelona have been making waves in the transfer market by being complete douchebags. Apparently, they are no longer able to make legal, upstanding deals anymore at all. But that actually doesn’t impact us, since we don’t have any common transfer targets and probably won’t for some time. Apologies to Roma, though, even if they taught Barca a lesson on Tuesday to the tune of a 4-2 win over the transfer hijackers. For that match, Valverde lined up: Cillessen; Lenglet, Marlon, Cucurella, Semedo, Roberto, Rafinha, Arthur, El Haddadi, Aleix Vidal, and the hijacked Malcom. He also has Cuenca, Puig, Miranda, Palencia, Collado, Ruiz, Monchu, Brandariz, Perez, ter Stegen, Alcacer, D. Suarez, Gomes, Ezkieta, Tabla, and Mingueza available.

I don't know what all the hype is about, 2 ex-Milan players scored, too

Milan didn’t hijack anyone’s transfer. After Bonucci asked to return to Juventus, it was a straight swap with him and Caldara. We are paying Higuain’s loan, and then have a right of redemption at the end of the year. But none of those people will be in Santa Clara on Saturday night. Gattuso will have:

The Brothers Donnarumma, Reina, Abate, Antonelli, Bellodi, Calabria, Musacchio, Rodriguez, Zapata, Brescianini, Calhanoglu, Halilovic, Kessie, Locatelli, Mauri, Torrasi, Borini, Cutrone, Kalinic, André Silva, Suso, and Tsadjout. It is unknown as of this writing whether or not Bertolacci and Bonaventura will be available for this match after suffering minor injuries.

Hoping he is like the Little Engine that Could against his old side

Having lost both of our ICC matches so far, I have no hopes of a win this time, either. Especially after watching our defense play without Bonucci. Maybe if Gattuso adds his World Cup returned players, they can make some difference. Certainly it would be amazing to see Halilovic score and impress against the side he never got a proper chance with. But most fans will probably still be dreaming of the upcoming season with our new striker and young center back. And they probably won’t be alone, as Allegri will probably be thinking of them, too. If not our opponents. But he will have had his hands full of Juventus’ worst nightmare, Ronaldo’s ex-team, Real Madrid right before our game anyway. Sorry, Allegri.

This post inspired by the music of The All-American Rejects’ “Gives You Hell”

Milan vs. Barcelona

Saturday, August 4 • 5:05pm PDT (Sunday, August 5 • 2:05am CEST)

Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, CA, USA

This match will be shown LIVE on ESPN Deportes in the USA