MILAN THE REBIRTH
Zlatan Ibrahimovic stands tall in the Paris sunshine, as a throng of black-suited goons clear the way for him like an untouchable deity. The Eiffel Tower looms large in the background, doing its best to remind the city’s new star who the real boss in town is.
It’s futile, of course. In July 2012, the spotlight is on one totem of power: Paris Saint-Germain’s €20 million arrival, recruited to deliver them a first Ligue 1 title since 1994. It’s a new dawn in the French capital; a new dawn for football full stop.
But where there’s new life, there’s death – and in July 2012, Associazione Calcio Milan are dying. Zlatan is the final major departure of a wounding summer at San Siro, following Thiago Silva (also to PSG) and a host of icons out the exit door: Clarence Seedorf, Gennaro Gattuso, Alessandro Nesta, Filippo Inzaghi… all gone in one fell swoop. Alexandre Pato will join them six months later.
Milan supporters don’t know it yet, but their days scaling the top of Italian football have already been over for quite some time. Even competing in the Champions League will be a distant pipe dream, lost amid season upon season of chaos and failure. San Siro’s trophy room will become nothing more than a dusty hall of ghosts.
For a heavyweight known around the world as Il Diavolo (‘the Devil’), which dominated on both domestic and European fronts over two famous eras between 1987 and 2007, these years out in the wilderness must have really felt like hell.
Thankfully for Milan, nothing lasts forever – not even unbridled torment. They may have gone 10 years without celebrating an Italian title, burned through eight bosses and diced with danger at boardroom level, but the club finally have reasons to cheer once more.
Financially stable, back in the Champions League for the first time since 2013-14 and bidding to take advantage of an Inter outfit shorn of manager Antonio Conte plus stars Romelu Lukaku and Achraf Hakimi, a missing sense of continuity has been restored for last season’s Serie A runners-up – their first finish above fifth since 2013.
After seven bleak years, the Rossoneri are where their history demands them to be, but it’s been an arduous climb that has often left them gasping for air.
HO LI SMOKES
Football has changed markedly since Milan’s last European Cup victory. While several rivals have gone global with their ownership, most Italian sides have missed out on the limitless resources that Arabic, Russian or American investors tend to bring.
Although Silvio Berlusconi’s reign officially ended in 2017, the Champions League final triumph against Liverpool in Athens a decade earlier remains
