Europa League Qualification - Should it really be AC Milan's objective?

AC Milan is having one of its worst seasons of the Berlusconi era, but they can still qualify for the Europa League (EL). According to Adriano Galliani, this is Milan's objective for the remainder of the season:

It is not true that Milan does not want to participate in Europa League. Qualifying for this tournament is our new objective for the rest of the season.

Having restored some pride by winning last week's derby, Milan is currently 8th with 54 points, 1 point behind the 6th place (last qualifying spot) and 3 behind the 5th. The 4th place is pretty much a done deal for Fiorentina. Hellas Verona, 10th with 53 points, can still dream of a EL spot too. So the battle rages on with two gameweeks to go...

But should AC Milan really make it to the Europa League?

AC Milan has never won the Europa League (fka UEFA Cup and Inter-cities Fairs Cup). Their best finish was reaching the semi-finals twice in 1972 (losing to Tottenham - see below) and 2002 (losing to Borussia Dortmund), but often crashing out much earlier than that.

This tournament has never motivated AC Milan and will never do. AC Milan have the Champions League in their DNA. Who can forget the humiliation against Bordeaux in the quarter finals of the 1996 edition? Having won the first leg 2-0 thanks to goals from Eranio and Baggio, the Milan of Baresi and Maldini capitulated in the second leg at Parc Lescure:

The Europa League is not the Champions League (CL). Excluding matchday revenues and market pool share, a potential winner of the EL can take home up to EUR10m, whereas the CL will offer up to EUR37.4m. Playing on Thursdays can be detrimental to the League form, and even worse, if Milan finishes 6th (the most likely scenario), they will play the Third Qualifying Round, with the first leg scheduled on 31 July 2014, less than a month after the end of the World Cup. The following round, the Play-off round, will follow in late August. This does not only mean that AC Milan will have to start their season very early, it also means that the players will hardly have a break, and the preparation would have to be cut short. Add to that the presence of Clarence Seedorf in Brazil as a pundit for the BBC, and then you start wondering how will Milan be prepared to tackle the 2014-15 Serie A, which starts just two days after the first leg of the Play-off round...

Not playing the Europa League won't be a financial disaster as opposed to not playing the Champions League. Not playing the Europa League will spare them the hassle of mid-week games, without making them lose any appeal in the transfer market. Has a player ever said: I will only stay in this club if they make it to the EL? Or I would only move to that club if they are playing in the EL? No, you only hear this tune when the Champions League is concerned.

AS Roma had a great run in Serie A this year, winning the first 10 games of the season and then finishing in second place. Liverpool had its best Premier League campaign in years, fighting for the title until the very end. Would they have achieved these good performances had they played in the EL? Given the quality and the size of the squad, surely not...

Where did El Shaarawy go?

16 December 2012. AC Milan: 4 Pescara: 1. Gameweek 17. Stephan El Shaarawy on the scoresheet for the 14th time of the season, keeping AC Milan hopes of a Champions League berth alive despite a horrible start of the season. Then came the winter break and Stephan scored only twice.

He did ultimately finish top scorer for AC Milan in the 2012-13 season, with 16 goals and 6 assists but ever since that winter break, Stephan seems to have disappeared. Only two goals in the 19 games following the Pescara game. This season, due to a nasty foot injury, he has only played a handful of games, totaling 323 minutes. It includes 2 Champions League playoff games against PSV Einhdoven back in August, when he scored one (vital) goal.

He is about to regain full fitness, and he's expected to be back in the squad sometime in April. But what is worrying is the fact that although they are very good friends off the pitch, Stephan's slump in form coincided with the arrival of Super Mario Balotelli. Was Max Allegri unable to make the most of the two youngsters at the same time, or are they just incompatible?

Looking at their performances with the Squadra Azzurra suggests unfortunately the latter. They played together six times:

• Twice during the World Cup qualifying phase: once against Malta (no need to spend time on the result) and once against the Czech Republic (0-0). It was an insipid performance from Italy.
• Four times in friendlies, the most notable one being a prestigious game against the French. This was the first time El Shaa and Balo were about to link up for the Azzurri. It was a promising start as Stephan scored a well played goal thanks to an assist from Montolivo (after a flick from Balotelli), but Italy lost the game 1-2. Three other friendlies followed, against the Netherlands, Brazil and lowly Haiti and they all resulted in draws with no fireworks from the duo.

The Confed Cup came at a bad time for Stephan. Having been out of form for Milan, he spent most of it on the bench, playing 19 minutes against Brazil and the full 120 minutes in the third place playoff against Uruguay.

Allegri is now gone. Berlusconi thought that the best replacement is the untested Clarence Seedorf. The good news for The Pharaoh is that Seedorf likes to use a 4-2-3-1 formation, which should be ideal for him. Allegri and Prandelli never really used this formation. Stephan can play in his favorite position of left winger, and he can track back as much as he wants. One problem though is that he is yet to play with the January recruits Honda or Taarabt, or even the summer recruit Kaka for this matter.

A fully fit El Shaarawy is surely a big boost on paper for the Rossoneri, but will he become match fit quickly enough? Will he adapt in time to his new coach and teammates? Will he be able to finally link up properly with Balotelli?

Time is running out for El Shaa, and with Immobile and Destro putting in solid performances week in week out in the recent months, his trip to Brazil seems like a distant dream...

Kaka: Should I stay or should I go?

In the summer of 2013, Kaka decided he had enough. He was persistent and tried hard for 4 seasons. He overcame a serious injury and scored 29 goals in 120 appearances, with an average of only 57 minutes per appearance. Add to that 39 assists and the numbers look pretty decent for a midfielder.

But when Kaka left the club where he was a living legend, he had big ambitions. He signed for €65m  and he was dreaming of Ligas, Champions Leagues and Ballons d'Or. And so was Florentino Perez. Kaka wanted to leave his mark at two of the greatest football clubs in the world. He undoubtedly had high hopes, and he had every right to believe he could achieve all of that after six brilliant seasons in Italy. But he failed. He struggled to impose himself as a regular starter and he will never be remembered as a Real Madrid Great.

Kaka had to end his Spanish nightmare. He took a significant pay cut, left from the back door and returned to the San Siro. He was seen by many as the saviour of the worst AC Milan of the Berlusconi era, both on paper and on the pitch. Adriano Galliani thought he had done a good job during that transfer window. But it was a diminished version of the outstanding Kaka that moved back to Milan. Kaka has thus far scored 9 goals and provided 7 assists. Again, the numbers look ok, but AC Milan failed miserably in the Champions League and are 11th in the league, with a whopping 39 point gap separating them from the leaders, Juventus. Although Kaka is not solely responsible for Milan woes, he has failed to light up Italian football like he did in his first spell. Kaka has lost his 'mojo'.

Galliani revealed this week that Kaka has a clause in his contract that allows him to walk away from the San Siro at the end of season as AC Milan won't make it to the Champions League. The player himself stated that he is interested in playing in the MLS:

"In future I'd like to play in America. At the end of the season I'll talk to Adriano Galliani to understand his ideas and those of the club. If I were to leave, then I would like a transfer to the United States."

If Milan were to continue their austerity cure and sign the Constants and Birsas of this world, then Kaka will surely be missed. If on the other hand, there is a cash injection from a wealthy new owner (or most probably a co-owner), then the MLS is a better option for both Kaka and Milan.

Kaka, who single-handedly brought home the 2007 Champions League, two years after the humiliation in Istanbul, might never play in this competition again. He won't play the World Cup in his homeland either. What a shame!

It seems that Kaka is today seriously contemplating his future, but whether he stays or he leaves, the 2007 Ballon d'Or we admired disappeared from the game long ago.

Ciao Maestro. it's been a pleasure watching you...

Is Serie A really serious about promoting youth talent?

Albert Riera moves to Udinese . When I first read the news, I said to myself I remember a Riera from Benitez’s time at Liverpool but is he still playing football? It turned out that I was half-right: the Spaniard has been without a club since January but he was still on the market.

Udinese Calcio, the second oldest club in Italy, that has been continuously in Serie A since 1995, and that has been playing in Europe frequently in the past 10 years, is signing a 32-year-old player who has no club and has played in Greece and Turkey since 2010. Udinese must have really believed that Riera was a great addition to the squad to sign him.

Udinese’s transfer policy is not a secret. They sign plenty of cheap players from around the world hoping that one of them will turn out to be a very good footballer. Alexis Sanchez was one of them. Benatia, Inler and Handanovic are some other examples. Udinese do not focus on Italy, but couldn’t they find a young player who can do the same job as Riera? Couldn’t they promote anyone from the youth team?

Riera’s signing is not an isolated case. Lazio signed Saha (34) last year after he was released by Sunderland. Anyone who watched Kaka (31) during his first spell at Milan and last year at Real Madrid knows very well that this is not the 2007 Ballon d’Or anymore. So why did Milan bring him back? Why did Inter Milan keep Milito (34), Samuel (36), or even Zanetti (40)? Why did Atalanta sign Yepes (38)? Why did Napoli sign Reveilliere (34)? Why do Juventus, Inter or Parma have reserve goalkeepers who are at least 37 years old?

While the Italian clubs are signing older players or clinging to their ageing or underperforming stars, Italian youngsters are leaving. Caldirola and Donati, two players who did very well last summer for Italy at the Under-21 Euros, left the Serie A for a better chance in the Bundesliga.

The financial crisis has obviously hit Italian football clubs hard. But instead of turning to youth they kept looking abroad for cheaper and cheaper recruits. The quality of these recruits has been going down dramatically. Italian clubs prefer old and foreign players over local cheaper youngsters. Even though Robinho is getting worse by the day, he has managed to play 1553 minutes this season, whereas Saponara, a 23-year-old Italian player who did brilliantly for Empoli in Serie B last year, could only get 209 minutes.

So while Riera is joining the club that once signed Zico, Benfica and Porto are still proudly flying the flag for Portugal in the Europa League, and if Italy loses its 4th spot in the UEFA ranking, it should not come as a surprise to anyone.