Saturday was Kjaer's 33rd birthday, and he gave an interview saying that he was going to come back from his injury even stronger. In an ironic twist of fate, his friend and teammate whose life he saved, Eriksen, returned to the pitch for Denmark after his heart problems actually on Kjaer's birthday and scored with his first touch of the game. With that same spirit and desire, Milan will need to return after the international break even stronger to make a final push for the Scudetto.
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| The fighting spirit of this team |
While Kjaer's comeback will have to wait until after this season, many Milan players have been out this season, often with serious injuries, and have come back even stronger. One that comes to mind is Maignan. When he broke his wrist, it could have kept him out much longer, but he fought back, came back earlier than expected, and is now stronger than ever.
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| What injury? |
Losing Kjaer was devastating, but all of our defenders have done their part at different times, stepping up when needed. Most recently, Kalulu made the huge jump up in form as well as changing positions when we needed him most to give amazing performances in the middle alongside Tomori. It seems that no matter what has happened to our defense this season, it just comes back even stronger.
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| The strength of our youth |
Then there is The One. Ibrahimović has missed so many games to injury this season, but his mentality never drops. While we have yet to see enough minutes from him since his latest return to do anything, you can feel the adrenaline, his desire to drag the team to victory. Even though he seems to have successfully infused his winning mentality on his teammates, whether it be through verbal or physical inspiration, his desire to win again makes him even stronger.
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| Our mental strength |
Will Milan pull it off? There are eight more league matches plus the Coppa Italia remaining this season to test the theory. Right now, mentality is on our side. But will it be enough against teams that have fiscal or physical advantages? Will all of our injuries and referee errors have cost us just enough that we won't quite make it across that finish line first? Or will those things be the inspiration, the driving force, the cause that brings us together? I like to believe that it will be the latter, that this will be the season remembered for coming back even stronger.
This post inspired by the music of The Cranberries' "Dreams"