Kaka apparently got a good kick to his injured foot and was taken off as a precaution (according to the latest Italian reports).

And Pippo got a player rating of 8 (high even for a striker).

Guys i just realised that the first top 3 clubs in england, spain, and Italy have direct passage into the champions league..I thought it was just only the first top 2 clubs that had direct passage and that the remaining two of the four clubs would play pre-qualifying rounds why is dat?

Because the rules changed. You can check out the rules on UEFA's website.

Thanks Tennie...i'll definitely check that out

It's because of Platini's fixation with lesser teams progressing further into the CL. Just ask Sporting how THAT worked out.

About this winning, i thought that stubborn Ancelotti is going to melt since he plays 2 strikers in his starting XI,
and second half also better, that he replaced DM with AM, as we can see, Milan extend the gap to 5 goals againts 1.

Great tactic coach !! Again, two stikers more strike than one, so why bother coach ?? Keep the two strikers formation !!

While the Pato Pippo duet goes awesone, Sheva feels lonely on bench, what a pity...
and let's hope Abbiatti get well soon, this winning is dedicated for you Abbiati..

that's why our season goal changed to 3rd position not 2nd position..

That is why Galliani is very stupid...First of all, at the beginning of the season, he said that if Carlo doesn't win the league he'll be out...ait he was out of the race not even close to the end of the season...he lost the coppa italia, uefa cup....wat next are we keeping him for....?

Because if you look at our injury list since December, it's been pretty much first team.

Galliani cannot ignore that most of our key players have been out.

+1 sad but true. In terms of fair play i agree with you. Its been hard on carlo with the sick joke going on this season, however it does not excuse his mental handicapness.


Even when we did have the squad, we lost too many games just based on his tactics and subs alone.


one more thing jack; you and me= destiny

Nesta is the only key player that has been out for a long time. Gattuso is the other big miss but other then that it has been the usual ins and outs when it comes to injuries.

Had we not lost all those points at the beginning of the season when we were basically at full strength we would not have been immediately removed from the running the moment things got a bit tough with the injuries.

Plus looking at the teams we faced that we lost points against throughout the season, it had nothing to do with injured players but with the mantelity of this team and coach, most of those lost points came from games where we score early and try to hold on, going on the defensive, putting in defensive subs for the attacking players and conceeding the equilizer or winner in the last moments of the match. Imo that is what cost us the league not the injuries. The coach is responsible for us not putting up a better challenge for both the league and UEFA Cup, and no matter how many excuses anyone tries to put up to cover Carlo's @ss the obvious is still there, had he been a better coach we probably would have won this title easily, considering all of Inter's hick-ups, Juve's terrible start and hot and cold form, and Roma being MIA for most of the season. And also the fact that we had no CL to use as an excuse for not putting the league as top priority

Sorry, Blue, but I already have that distinction with Jack. The pirate is MINE.

OMG i just realised that jack sparrow has a Favalli sig!

Someone quickly assassinate him

Great sig Jack love the quotation !!!!

Hope we play 2 strikers regurarly........... .

I saw the replay on FSC. The Abs/Favalli collision may have looked innocuous, but they definitely banged knees. That could easily snap or break something. That first goal from Pato...Holy Christ, that's all I can say.

At the end of the match, FSC actually said that this was Abs' first year as Milan's #1. Guess '99-02 never existed, eh?

Thanks Ry4n. Credit to arivanjj for the sig. I wanted to put it in, but the sig size limiter won't allow it.

Managed to finally catch some highlights.

Whoever would have thought we won, yet again, while playing with 2 strikers? Carlo is so annoying..

Don't worry Kurt, as soon as carlo's lover is fit he will come back and Pato will be isolated once again

+1

come on, i wouldnt go that far. their relationship is purely carnal. judging by zees physique i take it he's the receiver

Moderators can you please start a thread..


Galaxy vs Milan!!!! July 19th Tickets are on sale lagalaxy.com.. I got my tickets just wanted to spread the good news.

*yawn*

I can see now how we made the Beckham deal go through

It's ok. Off season right?

For ****'s sake!! Galaxy-Milan?

What exactly are we doing? are we really going to go all the way to America to play with.. Galaxy?

In two years, we've gone from CL champs to slumming it with MLS teams. How the mighty have fallen.

What's with the serious over reaction?? There are no objections raised when Madrid go to Japan in off season? Yeesh. So yes, it's probably a money thing, but so what? Not like we're going mid-week before a league match.

yea seriously it's a summer tour. Milan, with all their stars, particularly media darling ronaldinho (la=mexico=ronaldinho fans) coming to play the La Galaxy, with Becks playing against Milan..will be hyped up so much by the media it will serve only to raise the profile of the club ever so slightly here..hell chelsea tours all the time, as does barca. In fact i saw chelsea at stanford university a few summers ago. It was Shev's first few games for chelsea, and he certainly stank it up when i saw him =)

plus well sh!t, i'm not missing this opportunity, i'm definitely going to be there, and i've never seen milan play before in person. i'm heartbroken that maldini won't be there, but i can't wait to be able to say "I've seen Kaka, Ronaldinho, Pato, Pirlo, Gattuso, etc play"

Oh yeah...

Chelsea was the club I was looking for. Not sure if Madrid still tour Japan, after the end of the Galatico era.

Thing is, it's in July so it'll be very early in the preseason training -- who's actually going to play? Perhaps 1 or 2 significant players but I'd expect to see next year's equivalent of the Uru-kids, Darmian, etc. too.

So, is somoene going to open the match thread?

Don't think there's any need 10ie. Put it up in the calendar, we'll open a thread for it around July.

@han: I don't know. While I can't disagree with you completely, I still feel that we've been seriously handicapped by injuries. See the thing is you've talked about Inter's hiccups, Juve's terrible start etc. Now I believe that every team has that in a season. So did Milan. The difference is, anytime we looked like making a proper rally for it, someone would get injured. We were never in a position of full strength to really make a comeback.

Sandro has been a HUGE miss. Rino was red-hot when he went out. Flamini has only recently begun to exert himself on the team, and started playing that role we thought he would at the beginning of tghe season. Borriello was actually pretty key for us, till he went out. Pato had to play lone striker for some time till Pippo came back in.

I don't think we've actually lost more than say 6-7 points MAX coz of iffy substitutions. Then again, you can't say directly that X sub was the reason for a loss, unless the X sub scored an own goal, but I get what you mean anyway.

I think the injuries totally screwed up our team rotation. I think there was no underlying stability coz of that. I also think that because of that our players were often tired and playing when not fully fit.

To which there is an argument, that why don't we try Cardaccio/Viudez or Darmian or anyone of those other players who never get a look in.

I don't have a counter-argument. I've always maintained that Carlo is not the best coach for youth, since he's a tactician primarily. Also I've been talking for some time about how Carlo needs a proper assistant coach. Not some guy like Tassotti who's more of a sidekick.(I love Tassotti, but c'mon we need someone with a great track record like Ten Cate). All I can say is when we hype all these youngsters, it's mostly coz we're sick of seeing the same guys have their same weaknesses exposed. So we want a change. But we've never seen these youngsters a lot. Not like we watch training videos or anything. Perhaps, they might have a huge set of gaps that might make us even more susceptible. A case in point would be I dunno...David Bentley. Or Vargas for the Viola. Thhey both looked like solid purchases, but have so far sucked @ss.


I know that I'm considered a blind Carlo supporter, a tag I don't mind in the least. But I only speak up when I feel he's been accused unfairly of stuff. I think with our injury situation, a 2nd place position would be about par for the course, and I do believe that we're on track for it. It's really not easy tactics wise to come up with something new when vital positions like DM, CB, or KAKA (yup that's a position! ) are always affected.

As for Carlo:

1. He ain't good for youth. He's a tactician. He wants players who are smart enough to get tactics and play them. He doesn't give a rat's @ss about how many step overs you can do, and how good your first touch is, if as a CM you're not tracking back to cut space (for instance). As far as he's concerned, you work your way up the food chain to get a free role. Pato had to go through it, and he did. The boy put his head down and worked hard, and I seriously think Pato is in Carlo's good books now. I think this is where Yoann and Gila went wrong.

2. He has little say on transfers in the club. Only on tactics. He can say, I want a DM and talk about Emerson. He gets Brocchi. He can talk about an AM to complement Kaka and talk about Ribery. They will get him R80. That's the way it works. You can't blame the management coz unlike Moratti, they're not going to go into debt coz their coach's got the hots for some guy. No...Carlo doesn't talk back. Maybe he understands the financial situation. I kinda think it's a sign of affection for the club that he doesn't pack his bags and leave when he didn't get things done his way.

3. He's not a drillmaster. Nope. This is something that I feel is a big gap in his coaching. Our team while tactically sound is not a well drilled regiment, like something Mourinho would put out. Which is why when a team like Man U comes to the Siro, and the boys are sharp, we kick their butts. But when a team like Reggina comes by, we are not motivated enough, and so are caught napping. If they were drilled properly, what needed to be done would be like muscle memory.

4. Playing favourites. I don't completely agree he 'plays' favourites. But yes he does have his favourites. Seedorf is one. But you have heard him talk about Seedorf so highly. I think there's a lot of mutual respect there. Carlo considers Zee a leader on the field. His go-to-guy along with Maldini and Kaka in that line-up to pull Milan out of any situation. I think Zee has delivered enough times for his loyalty and importance to be beyond question. Tactically though, I think Zee has been marooned a bit. He wants to play treqqie, yet he's been accomodated in a position and style of play which suits Kaka/a mobile AM. Usually in Milan, the offensive tactics are centred around Kaka's strengths (not without reason)...and Zee is always the person doing the heavy lugging. He's the unglamorous player. Either the junction player. Or the fellow who has to fall back and help the midfield with defending etc. So obviously, you don't see him show up like we know he can.

I think Zee in a formation like this

------------------Pippo---------------
-----Pato-------------------Rossi-----
-----------------Zee-------------------


would be more effective than

------Pato-------Pippo---------
-----------Zee-----------------


In Italy, I think opposing teams know what Zee can do. They're onto him pretty quickly. It's not quite the same in Europe, where teams in a bid to attack, don't really have enough players to stifle Zee, Pirlo AND Kaka. This means Zee can turn it on, as he likes it, while still playing that 'junction role'.

But of course, that's the way I see it, and you guys might have a different view.


Sorry, didn't mean to take it OT, but I was afraid han would feel bad if I didn't reply with a monster.


@Bluey: LMAO at your Destiny comment Dozer!! I'm the Jerry to your Ben, the Beavis to your Butthead, the Lennon to your McCartney, the Perry to your Tyler, the Pana to your Porty.

versing Napoli away next match... this is where we start losing.. right?

Depends. New coach, new tactics. We might have a chance. But ex-Milan players always want to shine in front of their old team, and that might go for Donadoni as well.

I'm eager to see how Don's Napoli do in the remainder of the season. who knows, if he revives Napoli he could be on Milan's bench next season...



Well, right now Napoli can't even beat the relegation battling sides. they are about the weakest side in the league atm. it's all psychological though - the talented squad is still there. I wouldn't rule out a Napoli come back against us (of all the teams!). they like to beat big teams at San Paolo.

Time for a match thread then, zeddie?

Sure

@ Jack I'm going to give you a fancy reply to your fancy post with color codes and numbering, it's going to take a while to read that baby

Well Jack at the beginning of the season, only Nesta was injured, other then that most of the time we had a fully fit team. And imo, that is the time where we lost any chance of winning the league. We had a fully fit squad, yes we scraped through with the odd goal here and there but we lost a lot of points because of bad tactical decisions, not the injuries. I just think that had we not lost silly points during the time when we had a fit squad then we wouldn't have felt the points we lost now because of the crises, and I still don't agree on blaming all these lost points on injuries, since Carlo has the players and should have the tactical know how to overcome such bumps in the road and we would still win against the Reggina's and Lecce's of this league...

I'm not saying that Nesta isn't a huge miss, but Serie B sides know how to defend an arial ball better then us for God's sakes. And we supposedly have top quality defenders. We lost Rino at a difficuilt time, yes, but we still lost a lot of crucial points when he was still in the squad, same for Kaka and Pirlo. As for Boriello, he's played a total of something like 4 games, I wouldn't go as far as saying that we missed him since we don't know what it's like to have a fully fit Boriello that is well integrated into the team, imo he was never really key for us since we don't know what it's like to have him for an extended run. And Pato had to play lone striker because Carlo always wanted to play the xmas tree, when there is 2 of Seedorf, Kaka and Dinho fit, Carlo will use the xmas tree, simple as that, the only reason Pippo even got a look-in these past couple of weeks is because Kaka and Dinho were injured and now even Seedorf is crocked.

It's not about iffy subs only, it's about the subs, the defensive tactics that are immediately implemented the moment we score, even if that is in the first 5 minutes of the match, the complaicency of this team, that imo, is another bad reflection of our coach projecting itself onto the field. I think that if you go through all the games we played this season, we've lost about 15 to 20 points because of these factors. Non have anything to do with the injuries we have but all these issues I mentioned above that we have been suffering from for these last 3 years. Complaicency, negative play, and bad tactical decisions.

Even when we had a fit squad Carlo never rotates in league matches, the only time you ever see a "bench" player stepping onto the field is if it's a UEFA Cup game. Other then that he's happy to run our best players into the ground for league matches. He never rotates, he has a fixed formation and squad of starters and that is what he sticks to unless it's Coppa or friendlies. This season we were lucky because we played in the UEFA Cup, because you can rest assured that had it been the CL the regular starters in the league would have played those midweek games too.

As for the youngsters issue, I think this is an issue that we've pretty much exhausted beyond belief. All I have to say about it is that yes we don't know what a youngster is made of until we see him either screw up or emerge as a major prospect after seeing him on the field. But what excuse is there for not playing them when you've got Kaladze and Senderos making themselves look rediculous and kicking air instead of clearing simple balls and costing us matches over and over again, or guys like Seedorf coming out with half @ssed attitudes towards the Reggina's and Bologna's of this league, and then having talented youngsters on the bench like Darmian and Cardacio who are raring to go and make a good impression and you never give them a chance, yet the only difference between these 2 types of players is that one of them get to play every week and basically don't give a sh!t or are too terrible for words yet the still play because they are on the wrong side of 30 and the others don't play because they are on the right side of 20.


Well Inter and Juve both had major injury problems this season, they both had tactical problems and Juve have a team that imo, isn't half as talented as ours is. Yet they have both done better then us and had to play in the CL while going further then us in the Coppa. All these excuses that we keep trying to make for ourselves are groundless when you compare ourselves to our main competitors, and you see that they've had to contend with the same problems that we have and have both managed them far better then us. Again, I benefit this to the fact that their coaches are willing to make neccissary changes to their system instead of like Carlo, who keeps insisting on the same thing even when he can obviously see that it's clearly not working. Even Mourinho, who imo, is the most pompous, arrogant @sshole there is, admitted his shortcomings and made changes to his system, reverting from his coveted 4-3-3 to a 4-3-1-2.


1. Come on Jack, it's not like he's ever benched Seedorf for not tracking back and doing the work in midfield, when in most games you can see him jogging around the pitch while the team is trying to defend, even Pato and Pippo sometimes drop deaper then him to help out the team, yet you still see him come out first in every match whenever he's fit. Carlo to me is simply all about favourites, I don't see Darmian ever try to do any step overs to impress, he's always been very solid when I've seen him yet he never gets a chance, and you mentioned Yoann and Gila in the same sentence when to me their situations where complete opposites of eachother. Yoann rarely got chances and he started very well at Milan and it was obvious that whenever he got his usual 10 minutes every month that he wasn't in touch with the game and his team mates, Carlo never really liked him, yet Gila was given chance, after chance, after chance. And I'm saying this while I admit that I was a huge Gila supporter. I'm not saying fan but supporter, I believed that he would come good but he didn't. Yet Carlo always gave him the chances, and the moment Yoann even put a foot wrong he was out of there.

2. To me this is another reason why Carlo needs to leave, he does not stand up for himself, he's basically Galliani's door mat for God's sakes. Why do you think Galliani loves him so much? Because he lets him interfere in everything from tactics to line-ups, and most importantly doesn't complain about transfers or lack-there-of in our case. No other coach would put up with the cr@p Carlo dose and imo this holds us back a lot, Carlo is the coach, the players that are brought in are players that Carlo himself has to integrate into HIS team, he should be the one making these choices not Fester. I sometimes can't help but feel sorry for him, like for example, before the season started, when Galliani was asked if everyone was happy with the Sheva transfer and he said that he and B are very happy about it, with total disregard towards Carlo, who at the end of the day is the one who has to handle and dressing room handbags as Tennie would say. Or when Galliani said that Carlo has to win the league, that they've made purchases in the market and Carlo should be able to win the league. I don't see how that is fair since not a single one of those transfer choices was made by Carlo

3. No Carlo is not a drill master he never was, but inthe past we had a well organised team that knew how to defend and attack as a team, this was under Carlo. Now to me it seems like he's lost control of his team. And you can say that we can kick Man U's @ss all you want, but fact is, that type of game comes once maybe twice every year, we have to play the Bologna's and Lecce's week in week out in the league, and these are the types of teams you have to win against if you want to win the league, not only the 6 fixtures against big teams, simple as that.

4. I think you know how I feel about the favourites issue, some of us see it, some of us don't I just think it's blantantly obvious and those who don't see it are those who choose to ignore it. As for Seedorf's position, Seedorf always played in the midfield 3 under Carlo, he was revived in that position after failing miserably at Inter trying to play the tequartista position. Even when we didn't have Kaka in the team, Seedorf always played in the midfield 3, and imo this is where he plays best. So I don't think his position should excuse his mostly indifferent performances, he's a player that has won EVERYTHING there is to win in football THRICE over, it's obvious that the passion he once had is not there anymore. He picks and chooses the games he plays, yet still does not want to be benched or he'll create problems in the team. I wouldn't call that respectable or honourable behaviour.

As for his position, I already stated where that is, next to Pirlo in the midfield 3, he's too slow to play as an AM.

And Jack you wouldn't be you without the monster posts, I just took it upon myself to create a monster bigger then yours