GENOA 0 - 2 AC MILAN

AC Milan mustered through a win over Genoa.
Tonight’s match wasn’t about looking impressive, it was about those three points to build up their case for the Champions League. Italy need’s AC Milan in the Champions League.

Genoa started the match very well and were very unlucky to score against very resilient Milan defence and a superb Abbiati.  Cruelly Milan scored a quick cutthroat goal out of nowhere from Pazzini who continues his great form though this goal which required him to dive across the goal face may have done more damage to his already hurt ankle and saw him soon enough to the bench.
Balotelli made his arrival onto the pitch noted picking up a yellow card straight off for pushing Vargas. Then if this wasn’t enough to annoy the home fans, the referee waved away three very dubious penalty appeals!

Former Milan man Borriello nearly struck after halftime and helped Genoa get off to a good second half start , most likely rallied from the cruel referee decisions. Flamini suddenly struck himself alive, amongst the chaos of midfield and after a silly dive for a penalty, rocketed a shot which was saved by Frey.  The resulting corner then found Balotelli in the box whom whipped the ball into the back of the net.  Ten minutes later Constant recklessly got himself booked and Milan responded by building up  a brick wall in their own half that Genoa could not break.

Final Thoughts
* First time of the season that Milan plays 2 consecutive games without conceding.
* Inform Pazzini could be a big loss before the Barca match
*Muntari was worryingly very off form
*Super Mario continues his good scoring record
*Really cutting the gap between the top 2!

Milan’s Best
3.Abbiati : A string of very impressive saves kept Milan  in the match and helped lead them to victory. Helped maintain the calm when Milan were ten men.
2.Pazzini : Continued his great form over the past few games. Always haggling the defenders & hanging off the last shoulder.
1. Flamini: Quiet as can be for the first half before bursting to life in the second. Always trying to draw attention to from the referee . Very good defending in the last 30 minutes which helped keep the three points.

AC MILAN 3 - 0 LAZIO

I am sorry for the late post, I have been absent due to unforseen family problems.

This was the battle for third place. The Champions League. Both teams wanted to be in Europe’s most prestigious competition next season and to do this they must finish third. Milan now have that advantage.

From the moment Candreva was sent off, Milan dominated the match. Lazio began to become stuck in their own half, seeing little of the ball and throwing some risky tackles. They  did however surprisingly keep Milan out of bay for a good 40minutes until an Abate shot which was blocked by Marchetti found it’s way to Pazzini , who made sure he did not miss. A moment later Pazzini ran into a header which should have been such a great header if it was not saved again by Marchetti but the rebound was swiftly found in the net from Prince Boateng.

The second half was a mauling from Milan, all their players were working effortsly together and Lazio were unable to put up a fight. It seemed Milan had a hunger from the Inter game, not to waste anymore chances. The crowd seemed to sense this and helped them atmosphere become surreal.  Lazio did make one or two good “fight backs” but they were killed off from a poor clearance from Radu which fell to Pazzini and he smashed the ball through the bottom corner. You would think Milan now 3 up would have mercy? Oh no they didn’t, Pazzini almost completed his hat trick and El Shaarawy came agonising close again like all game.

Final Thoughts
* Clearly a match for Pazzini to show that Super Mario can’t just take his place in the side that easily.
*Abate clearly realises his place at stake, his form has raised so much in recent weeks
*Respect goes out to Allegri, he's done a fantastic job and has restored my faith in him lets hope he can keep it going.
*Lazio are in a crisis at the moment,  4 points  from a potential 18 in recent matches.

Milan’s Best
*Note,  this is the hardest game I’ve had to vote on yet, so many honourable mentions could be here
3.Pazzini : No Super Mario? No problem. Was everywhere and could have gotten 3-4 . Was always getting into dangerous positions and annoying the defenders.
2.De Sciglio: Could have had two assists if it were not for Marchetti ‘s brilliance. Constantly running up the line and pushing defenders back. Always putting the ball in the oppositions penalty box.
1.El Shaarawy : His defensive efforts are so underrated and he is constantly putting his opposition under threat with his attacking brilliance. Could have struck a couple himself.

The Youth

I promised another writer and here he is. This is his first piece.
His a fanatic Italian-Romanian friend and I have worked with him on other projects and wrote with him on soccerfanbase.com in the past.
Second to none, he has fanatic knowledge of all the European Leagues , even the lesser known ones such as Turkey & Romania!
I have great confidence in his writing ability and he will bring a new perspective on Italian & Milan football.
Balo is a personal friend of mine and has a great wealth of information about football so let’s all appreciate what he has to say.
Thank you.

 Azz

Milan is obviously one of the most successful clubs in the world. No other club has more Club World Cups than we do, and only Real Madrid have more Champions League titles.

But only until recently, things have been grim for the rossoneri. We lost 15 top class players in the summer; some due to our balance sheet, and others due to age. The new system Allegri and Berlusconi have begun to impose is similar to Barcelona's La Masia. We are trying to produce our own top players instead of buying them; developing a world class youth academy where any player could turn into the next Messi or Ronaldo.

Our best youth product (in the current first team) is surely Mattia De Sciglio. He is one of the best defensive prospects in Italy. While we do have several other top young players like El Shaarawy, Balotelli, and Niang, we haven't actually had many of our academy products turn into world class players (in recent times). But with a lot of investment of both time and effort, we can have an academy of the same quality as Barcelona's, and possibly even better.

 The signs of improvement have already begun to show - not only have we beaten Barca in the Champions League with several young players, but our academy players have also shown their quality in the Viareggio Cup by reaching the final this year. They also have impressed Italy's youth national team scouts with their displays. The biggest names to watch out for, in my opinion, include Saponara, Valoti, Ganz, Fossati, Prosenik, Cristante, Lora, Petagna, and Ferreira.

If we continue to invest time and money into developing a world class youth system similar to La Masia's, then we may soon very well on top of the world again, without having to spend huge amounts of cash on big name signings from other clubs. We'd also have the option of selling some of these youth at high prices. So hopefully, Berlusconi, Allegri, Pippo Inzaghi (the youth team coach) & co. will continue their hard work in the youth department and make us a legendary team again with these new strategies in mind.

Written by Balo.

Debacle Of Robinho

As of writing this, Robinho has undoubtedly achieved a lot of great thing in his career, his record for playing for the top teams such as Madrid, City,Brazil  & now AC Milan are testament to this. However, I think we can all agree he is not the man he was said to be by Pele, whom personally picked him to be his heir apparent, in other word's Brazils answer for Argentina's Messi.
We can all agree that is not him.

He came to us under a question mark, no we did not question if he was a quality player, we knew he was, but wether he would live up to his potential. He left City after being sent back firstly a homeloan to Santos where he performed admirably. Now he had arrived at our gates. Robinho was a very talented player in his first season managing to bag 14 goals in a forwardline that boasted Pato,Il Ibra,Cassano & "European Champion" Inzaghi . He worked brilliantly as a defensive forward whom could contribute to the attack.

However sadly,after his first season he begun to start missing shots, which cost us games. As much as his defensive pressure was great for us, he was a forward player, his role was to score goals. He could only manage a measly 10 goals from a return of 40 plus games and even though his scoring rate wasn't that much lower, his missing rate was far too high.

This season it's been more of the same for him,  having scored only 2 goals in 13 games before the transfer window. Now this is where the problem really began. I believe Robinho was told he would be sold back to Brazil in the window and he got have some leave of absence. In this leave however he did not train and has become fat , worse unfit.Galliani said they would get rid of him this summer, instead he is still here, out of form unfit & fat , nursing his sorrows having been holidaying in brazil.Sadly, bargaining power is completely with Santos in this one. Maybe Galliani should try some more of the clever PR he's doing. Keep announcing that Robinho will sign for Santos, get the Santos fans' hopes up and create a little pressure on the Santos management that way.

Now at 29 his past the point of where his going to improve this  Milan line up, especially with El Shaarawy's sudden burst of improvement as he plays in his preferred position. This has completely knocked Robinho out of the line up for good. In half a season  El Shaarawy has completed outperformed the former City player who could not handle manchester.

There is no doubt he has some good to great assests to bring to a team such as ;
-his defensive efforts as a forward player
-ability to drag opposing defenders from the forward line
-his trickery & showmastery
-great goal play assists

However despite bringing us the title not so long ago, I feel he is now past his best for Milan, his stayed here for one season too long. He isn't going to battle out his other teammates for a position in the line up and it's best for him to move away, though now it will be interesting to see whom will want such a player.

I've always thought of him as a mercenary type which is far too harsh, I just simply believe  he is no longer good enough for the current Milan project. His deplorable finishing in recent times has costs us a game too many and now we must acknowledge what he has achieved but make some money off him before it's too late.  As a Milan fan, I don't think anyone will ever forget his best game at the San Siro against ASSenal , his brace in the 4-0 win was fantastic. Hopefully he will find a club he can perform great at.
THANK YOU, but GOODBYE!

 

Derby Della Madonnina

Inter 1  AC Milan 1

This was a very unique match. Milan in the first half started off a wave of momentum and attack consistently down the left flank through De Sciglio due to El Shaarawy running infield taking Nagamato with him freeing up that left wing. Super Mario was dangerous as well connecting on the end of passes but his final product left him down.   Early on about 20 minutes in, Milan won the ball back in the middle and through a Boateng assist to El Shaarawy , he cut through two of the Inter defenders and shot with the outside of his shoe past the keeper into the back of the net. Milan would have piled upon more goals but their final product let them down. By the end of the first half Inter's defence were shambles and Milan could have been 3-4 nil up.

The second half started interestingly with a vast amount of fog covering the pitch and making it difficult for both the spectators and the players to see.All you would need is one good long ball come through the fog and either keeper would have been left stranded. The tackles started flying in a scrappy affair with Cambiasso being the main instigator.  Inter had the sense to switch full backs and Zanetti proved a much better counterpart  for De Sciglio to get past, whom had nearly zero of the impact he had made in the first half.Milan had lost their dominance and suddenly it was a game open for Inter.  Both teams played very scrappily and Inter made a great sub former Atlanta winger Schelotto who within two minutes beat out Mexes and scored a great goal. Both teams then went for the jugular before finally slowly down in the final ten minutes.


Final Thoughts
* Handanovic was brilliant and was the difference in the first half for Milan NOT scoring 4 goals.
*Muntari is continuing his brilliant form this month
*In the final 30 minutes Milan looked tired from the Barca game
* Ranocchia shys away from his responsibility too often and forced Guain to come back to act as a CB at times.
* Milan must remain more disciplined or they will be punished in the future
* Still undefeated in 2013!



Milan's Best
3.Boateng : Everytime I looked he was setting up passes, running back to intercept, tackling ,in general worked really hard and set up the goal.
2.Muntari: An absolute beast, ran into everything and worked superbly.  Unlucky to not get a few goals himself.
1.El Shaarawy: Faultless offensively and defensively tonight. Pulled Nagamato back infield and left the wing area of Inter's exposed. Then became a counter attacking threat . Used his great pace to score.

THE MILAN DERBY 24th Feb!

LET THE WAR BEGIN!

Well , well ,well , the Milan derby is upon us. It could not have come at a greater time for AC fans and such a bad time for Inter fans. Super Mario gets to reunite with his old team, to go to battle against his former teammates, but he won't be the only one, Muntari & Pazzini will be joining him.

This win will be important for both teams as they vie for control of the Europe's prestige competition, the Champions League.  Though Milan should not underestimate their counterparts, who only  trail them by a singular point.This makes this match so much more important.

Stramaccioni has also been guilty of tinkering too much with formations this term. While his tactical versatility is undoubtedly one of his strengths (his decision to play three up front against Juve was inspired), it has also proven something of a weakness, as Inter still look nothing like a settled side. Though his surviving ability has lead to Inter being undefeated in their past ten home games.




Formations:

INTER Handanovic Zanetti, Chivu, Juan, Nagatomo Kuzmanovic, Kovacic, Cambiasso Guarin Palacio, Cassano

AC MILAN Abbiati Abate, Zapata, Mexes, Constant Boaten,Montolivo, , Muntari Bojan, Balotelli, El Shaarawy

Milan hold the upper hand in terms of derby wins, boasting 81 triumphs to their arch-rival's 77. BUT this alone won't be enough to help them, Inter will lift for this derby game as they always do and despite their lack of form, it will be a close match.  Though Milan to ride it out 2-0 winners.

AC Milan 2 vs Barcelona 0 20/02/2013

Even at this age , miracles do happen.
We should not have even come close, this was the Barcelona dream team, we were merely the worst Milan fielded in over 20 years.
Yet somehow today I saw the passion of 11 players on the pitch, wanting to take down this giant.
Barcelona only had one shot on target all game. This must be some kind of record as they have never played this bad before. Milan marked out every player Messi had never look more lost in a game in recent times.


Ironically , it was a former pair of Portsmouth players, Ghana players that slayed the mighty beast, of Barcelona but every player played the game of their lives. This was the only reason we came as close as we did.The first goal came through a Montolivo free kick which riccishaded against Zapata's hand and into the path of Prince whom did not wait for a whistle and blasted it past Valdes.
Barca became impatient and begun fadding away from the game as Milan mustered terrific counters.
 Milan played like kings today and deservedly slayed
 
Final Thoughts
Pique never beat milan.Great dad!
Ambrosini is a big game player
Stephan is truly class, he performed defenisvley well for a forward
Abbiati barely touch the Ball!
Possibly Messi's worst match in a long time

Milan's Best
*Note: This was not easy, nearly every player on the pitch could have gotten a vote*
3.Prince: Scored a great goal, defensivley superb in midfield and contributed to the attack
2.Montolivo : Helped Milan hold onto the ball when they had it.Organised the attacks for them.
1. El Sharaaway: His best performance this season and he didn't even score a goal. Though he did have the chance early on. He defendedly beauitfuly when  needed and was always leading the counter attack.




We still have a long way to go in the 2nd leg, but I have never been more proud of the boys.