I Think Therefore I Play - Andrea Pirlo Rebuilds AC Milan

[Klippybo]

I THINK THEREFORE I PLAY - ANDREA PIRLO REBUILDS AC MILAN

So here I go again. My Benfica save was going great but got shut down far too soon which was a shame so to bounce back I have decided to restore one of European footballs former powerhouses to the top of European football.

AC Milan have a great history. They have won the Champions League 7 times (also won the Cup-Winners Cup twice), 2nd only to Real Madrid. 18 Serie A titles and 5 Coppa Italias have also been collected amongst others.

However in recent times they have significantly dropped and are just a top half Italian side who aren't even in Europe as they collected a ban for failing financial fair play rules. Basically the club is on a slippery slope and need to stop the demise - they have only won the title twice this century!!!!

There are of course rays of light. In Donnarumma, Paqueta and Romagnoli they have 3 franchise players that I can build my side around and of course there is a certain Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the squad.

So to take Milan back to the top I introduce to you Andrea Pirlo - the new AC Milan manager....

ANDREA PIRLO

Pirlo was a world class footballer. He started out with his local side Brescia and went on to sign for Inter Milan where he spent 3 years before signing for AC Milan for nearly £15m. He spent a decade with AC Milan where he won 2 league titles and 2 Champions Leagues before he was dumped by the club and he promptly signed for Juventus on a free transfer! 4 league titles in 4 years promptly followed and he ended his playing career in the USA with New York City.

For the national side Pirlo won the World Cup in 2006 and in total won a staggering 116 caps and scored 13 goals.

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AC MILAN

Formed - 1899
Nickname - I Rossoneri (The Red and Blacks)
Stadium - San Siro
Capacity - 80,018

Honours

Serie A Winners - 1901, 1906, 1907, 1950-51, 1954-55, 1956-57, 1958-59, 1961-62, 1967-68, 1978-79, 1987-88, 1991-92, 1992-93, 1993-94, 1995-96, 1998-99, 2003-04, 2010-11

Serie B Winners - 1980-81, 1982-83

Coppa Italia Winners - 1966-67, 1971-72, 1972-73, 1976-77, 2002-03

Supercoppa Winners - 1988, 1992, 1993, 1994, 2004, 2011, 2016

European Cup/UEFA Champions League Winners - 1962-63, 1968-69, 1988-89, 1989-90, 1993-94, 2002-03, 2006-07

UEFA Cup-Winners Cup - 1967-68, 1972-73

UEFA European Super Cup - 1989, 1990, 1994, 2003, 2007

Intercontinental Cup - 1969, 1989, 1990

FIFA Club World Cup - 2007

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So please follow and comment etc. My aim is to dominate both Italian and European football while I also want to build a young side that heavily relies on Italian players and I should be helped with that due to only being able to sign 1 non-eu player a season.
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[Klippybo]

PRE-SEASON

Well all I can say is - this is going to be much, much tougher than I thought. My squad needed a serious overhaul as it was so unbalanced but the prestige of signing for AC Milan has meant that some players were just not interested in signing plus with the finances I couldnt afford wages etc so even players like Tiago Almada and Layvin Kurzawa couldnt come.

I did manage to spend about £50m and recouped about half that and I managed to bring in 7 players permanently although 2 of those are prospects for the youth squads.

There wasnt too much to be done with the backroom staff although I did have nearly 30 scouts when I was only allowed 12! I got rid of half a dozen or so but the rest are all pretty decent in truth.

So here is my transfer dealings......

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PLAYERS OUT

I couldnt believe when I arrived that the squad had 5 natural LWs an no natural RWs and only 1 natural AMC. So obviously I had to trim the LWs so Samu Castillejo joined Leipzig for £13.25m and Diego Laxalt went to Atalanta for £8.25m. 33y/o Lucas Biglia was sold to Al-Hilal for £2.6m while Antonio Donnarumma joined Olympiakos for £300,000.

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PLAYERS IN

I have never found it so hard to sign players. I had to bring in a LB, CM, AMC and 2xRWs but as I said before the lure of joining AC Milan isnt as strong as what it was.

My LB that I bought after trying a couple of times to bring in Layvin Kurzawa was Nicola Murru from Sampdoria and I paid £6.75m. At 24y/o he can still improve a bit and he should do a job for me.

My new AMC is Yari Verschaeren who I signed from Anderlecht for £12m. The 18y/o should develop into a top player and he will be backup to Lucas Paqueta although like half my squad - he can also play at LW naturally lol.

Onto my new right wingers. I couldn't get anyone I really wanted so had to think outside of the box and try and find a gem at a decent price. I dunno if they will be gems but they were affordable. Abdulkadir Omur joined from Trabzonspor for £16.5m and Pione Sisto signed from Celta Vigo for £8.75m. Omur is 20y/o, quick and very technical and will get the nod at the start of the season while Sisto isn't a natural RW (another LW lol) but I was getting desperate and the Danish international has pace to burn.

The MC I signed was Victor Kovalenko and I brought him in from Shakhtar Donetsk for £6.5m which is a decent fee for a decent player.

Finally my other 3 players who came in for the youth squads were Naci Unuvar from Ajax for £1m, Raimondo Lucera from Palermo for £130,000 and Alessandro Tripadelli from Sassuolo on loan.

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SQUAD

My aim for the season is to take the club back into Europe and the board want me to get a Europa League spot with a league finish. I think I have a squad that can finish top 6 but it will be tough.

I obviously have no problems in goal with Donnarumma there while my defence is not bad. Musacchio and Romagnoli should be good in the middle and Theo Hernandez is a great young player at LB while Conti and Calabria will do battle for the RB spot.

At CM I have Kessie and Bennacer with Kovalenko and Krunic as backup although Bonaventura who is one of my natural LWs signed a new deal and wants to play at MC lol. Omur and Sisto will fight for the RW place, Lucas Paqueta will be AMC and out of the 300 LWs I will start with Hakan Calhanoglu but he better perform as there is plenty of competition with Bonaventura, Sisto, Rebic and Verschaeren all natural there.

Finally up front I will start the season with the main man - Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Sure he will turn 38 in a few months but I have to give him the opportunity to impress. Rafael Leao, who I had in my recent Benfica save, will push him all the way and Ante Rebic is also a natural striker.

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AUGUST

Lineup - Donnarumma, Calabria, Musacchio, Romagnoli, Murru, Kessie*, Bennacer, Abdulkadir Omur, Lucas Paqueta (Verschaeren), Hakan Calhanoglu (Bonaventura), Ibrahimovic (Leao)

A decent start to the season. Franck Kessie scored a screamer to put us in front and Omur got the 2nd late on - he also assisted the 1st. Ibrahimovic and Calhanoglu were **** though.

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Lineup - Donnarumma, Calabria, Musacchio*, Romagnoli, Murru, Kessie, Bennacer, Abdulkadir, Omur, Lucas Paqueta (Verschaeren), Hakan Calhanoglu (Bonaventura), Ibrahimovic (Leao)

A decent point although we rode our luck as Immobile sent a penalty wide for them in the 1st half. Calabria got sent-off in stoppage time but we held on.​

 

[corbax92]

Sympa cette story avec le Milan AC. Est ce que tu peux nous parler de la tactique que tu mets en place ?

 

[Klippybo]

Paolo Maldini
1985-2009
902 apps, 33 goals
Defender

Maldini is a world icon of football. He spent the whole of his career with Milan and the no.3 shirt is retired in his honour. His honours list is unbelievable - 7 Serie A titles, 1 Coppa Italia, 5 Supercoppas, 5 Champions League titles, 4 European Super Cups, 2 Intercontinental Cups and 1 World Club Cup. Add to that 126 caps for Italy (7 goals) and countless amounts of individual honours - he is one of the best ever defenders. His son is in my U20 squad.

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SEPTEMBER

Lineup - Donnarumma, Conti*, Musacchio, Romagnoli, Murru, Kessie (Bonaventura), Bennacer (Kovalenko), A.Omur (Sisto), Lucas Paqueta, H.Calhanoglu, Ibrahimovic

Very nice. Conti assisted 2 goals here so puts down a marker as he takes his chance with Calabria being suspended. Ibrahimovic and Calhanoglu scored as they put in their 1st decent performance although Lucas Paqueta was awful again.

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Lineup - Donnarumma, Conti (Calabria), Musacchio, Romagnoli, Murru (Hernandez), Kessie, Bennacer, A.Omur, Lucas Paqueta*, H.Calhanoglu, Ibrahimovic (Leao)

We continue our strong start to the season here with a fine away performance. We dominated possession and had double the shots on goal that Verona did and only conceded when Donnarumma had a silly moment and scored an own goal. Conti got injured here and will be out for a month.

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Lineup - Donnarumma, Calabria, Musacchio, Romagnoli, Murru (Hernandez), Kessie, Bennacer*, A.Omur, Lucas Paqueta, H.Calhanoglu (Rebic), Ibrahimovic

Another good away performance and victory. We got off to the perfect start when Bennacer scored in the 1st minute and Ibrahimovic doubled things for us and after that we basically shut up shop. They missed a host of chances and did get one back late on but we held on.

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Lineup - Donnarumma, Calabria, Musacchio, Romagnoli, Murru (Hernandez), Kessie, Bennacer, A.Omur, Lucas Paqueta, H.Calhanoglu (Bonaventura), Ibrahimovic (Leao)

A horrible, dull and boring match. Both sides only had 1 shot on target although we did have a goal disallowed by Musacchio. They had a man sent-off late on but we still couldn't threaten.

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SUMMARY

I am very much perplexed. Results have been good, we are unbeaten after 6 games and lie 3rd in the league, we have had some decent away wins and have done much better than I expected except individually there hasn't been many players that have impressed. Ibrahimovic was poor but got my player of the month award just because he scored 3 goals. We are getting the results but almost to a man nobody plays well. Very weird.

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PLAYER OF THE MONTH
ZLATAN IBRAHIMOVIC

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SERIE A

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