Marco Giampaolo was a coach with ideas, they said. He would
play his typical 4-3-1-2. During the summer, we saw such improvement in play,
even if the results didn’t quite come. Then came the friendly
with Cesena last week, and we were unable to put the game away against
a Serie C side. That was worrying, but surely it was just a fluke. However
against Udinese, we saw that it wasn’t a fluke at all. In fact, it seemed that
Giampaolo had no ideas.
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| Already out of ideas? |
The first half was troubling, with Udinese taking shots, but
Milan’s biggest contribution a trio of yellow cards, one for each midfielder.
And when I say midfielder, I use that word lightly. Both Paqueta and Calhanoglu
are natural trequartisti, and Borini is a winger. That was the idea that
Giampaolo had for our midfield. Meanwhile, Suso, naturally a winger, played as
a trequartista, and Castillejo, also a winger, was playing up front as a
support striker.
Granted, Biglia was injured. So Calhanoglu deputizing as the
regista was necessary on some level. That was primarily because after a mercato
that has seen five new players come to Milan, Giampaolo trusted exactly zero to
start. Well Hernandez was injured, too. But apparently, playing five players
out of position was better than playing the new players in position. Plus
Kessie, who although coming back later than the other players from his vacation,
was apparently less qualified to start than Borini, a winger, at that position.
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| One fateful moment |
The second half got worse, as Udinese took more chances and
nerves seemed to be more rattled. There was an incident in the 69th where Piatek
was slapped, but there was no whistle, no VAR review. Tudor took this chance
while there was a bit of a stop in the match to make a double substitution, fatefully
bringing on a Rodrigo De Paul. It was his corner, immediately after coming on,
that the other Rodrigo, Rodrigo Becao, headed in past everyone for the game
winner. 1-0 Udinese.
There had been a VAR review in stoppage time of the first
half, when Pasqua looked at a possible handball from Castillejo. But it was
judged to have occurred just outside of the box, so no call was made. But in
the 82nd, Pasqua went to the booth to review a handball in the box on Samir.
Again, he made no call, but the replays clearly show that the ball hit not only
his upper arm, but also his forearm, deflecting off of the latter. So Milan
were denied a penalty.
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| Same players, different coach, same results |
However, ref calls were the least worrisome thing in a match
that saw Milan take zero official shots on target. We had the same eleven
players that Gattuso used last season, but in a different system, and all
played out of position. The most worrisome thing is that after the match,
Giampaolo mentioned that he might switch to a 4-3-3 instead. After working all
summer on the 4-3-1-2, and having a mercato that was also based on this
system. He did sub on Leao and Bennacer eventually, each getting about 15
minutes, but not being able to make an impact. Not only did Giampaolo look visibly
nervous, coming out of the tunnel looking like he might vomit, it seems that he
is way out of his league. It feels like our ideas man already has no ideas.
This post inspired by the music of The
Primitives “Crash”
Our next match is
Serie A Week 2
Milan vs. Brescia
Saturday, August
31 • 18:00 CEST (12noon EDT)