Sunday, Milan has invited Genoa to the Club's 125th Anniversary party. Milan was founded on December 16th, 1899, so this management has vowed to make as much money as possible by marketing 125 years of Rossoneri history. They created a special kit that is a throwback to the early kits, and they had fans vote between specific elements that they had preselected about a year ago. That kit will be worn by the players for this match. They claim to have created the Milan Hall of Fame, which actually already existed for many years, but this time, they are using marketing to vote players into it by position, which is such a disgusting, asinine, American thing to do. They invited a bunch of former players, but not others. And whatever celebration they have planned will begin an hour before the match and be streamed on the official Milan App. But in this current club environment, I know I don't feel much like a party. So I guess on Sunday, we'll all be celebrating history... or something.
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| Representing 125 years of history. |
Genoa arrive at this match in 14th spot on the table, with three wins, six draws, and six losses. They have a new manager in Patrick Vieira, who actually played a season at Milan before also playing for Juventus, then going to Inter for cheap in the wake of Calciopoli. They also have a familiar player in their ranks this season, free agent and legend Mario Balotelli signed with the club. Talk about history.
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| If these two can work it out, then Fonseca should be able to figure things out. |
Genoa's last match was a 0-0 draw last week with Torino. For that match, Vieira lined up a 4-2-3-1 with: Leali; Sabelli, Bani, Matturro, Martín; Badelj, Frendrup; Zanoli, Thorsby, Miretti; and Pinamonti. He is missing a number of players to injury, including Malinovskyi, Ahanor, Ekhator, Ekuban, De Winter, and of course, our former Cinderella story player, Messias, who made sure to get injured rather than play against us, especially for this special match.
Fonseca is missing his mind. Like literally, he is spiralling out of control in a very public way, and I truly hope someone helps him, because not only is he hurting our club, I never want to see anyone have a public breakdown like this. He will also be missing a number of players to injury, including the long-term Florenzi, Bennacer, and Jović, as well as the newer injuries of Pulisic, Loftus-Cheek, and Musah. Morata, while having been subbed off on Wednesday, will apparently be available for this match.
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| We all want to see Liberali play, but this is not how it should be done. |
As per Fonseca's very public meltdown on Wednesday after the win vs. Crvena zvezda, he has called up a number of young players, depriving Milan Futuro of those players for their match today for his petty, vindictive "lesson" he feels compelled to teach to our players... again. Every time he has done this before, we have dropped points, so I'm not holding my breath.
Rumors are that Liberali and Jiménez will actually start, which sucks for the bench players who should be stepping into the positions Fonseca is "sad" about. And while it's always nice when young players get playing time, this is not how you do it, and it's not fair that he will send them straight back to the U23 or Primavera sides when he is done dropping points again. Whatever. A win would obviously be ideal with all the legends and Zaccardo and Montolivo there. Fonseca was meant to be suspended after his very specific complaints about the ref after the Atalanta match last week, but he got some kind of plea bargain or something.
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| One of these is not like the other. |
The person who most deserves to be at a celebration like this, Paolo Maldini, was actually invited, but declined. Perhaps it was because they specifically did not invite Boban, whom the previous management sacked and he recently won his appeal for wrongful termination. There will be some other amazing legends there, including all Three Dutchmen. The first recipients of their Tiffany & Co sponsored silver plates new Hall of Fame award are Van Basten, Pippo, and Shevchenko, along with Baresi, the honorary first inductee.
So yeah. I guess it will be good to see all of the legends or whatever. And celebrate history and stuff. And hopefully the match goes okay, although I am not holding my breath. Even less likely is that I will even pay attention to what Fonseca says postmatch, because I do not need that level of anger on this occasion, let alone during the holiday season. I suppose it will be interesting to be celebrating history... or something.
This post inspired by the music of Liam Lynch's "United States of Whatever"
Reviewed by Elaine
on
4:30 AM
Rating:
