The alarm bell rings harder on Milan’s door as they were embarrassed on their first pre-season game by newly promoted serie B team Varese that surprisingly defeated the Italian giant 2-0 at Stadio Franco Ossola in Varese. The Rossoneri’s defense were pretty much to blame for the two goals that the serie B team managed to score in the first half through Buzegoli and Cellini, despite dominating the possession the 7th time Champions League winner just unable to break down Varese’s defense.
The Rossoneri started the game with a combination of 4-3-2-1 that turns into 4-3-1-2 at times with Clarence Seedorf playing behind Pato-Borriello partnership, this combination looks pretty good although the Italian striker seems to suffer from another minor injury that troubled him earlier on. Varese on the other hand playing the classic 4-4-2 formation and doesn’t really looked dominating as they were pretty much relying to play on the counter.
However, Milan’s awful defensive coordination in the first half was the cause of all Rossoneri’s problem as on the 6th minute, Buzegoli manage to latch on to Neto Pereira’s pass and slot the ball home easily into the red and black squad’s net. Despite some attempts from Pato, Flamini, Boriello and Seedorf to equalize, it was the home side that manage to score again through Cellini in the 30th minute after making the most of Kaladze’s poor defending.
On the second half, Milan make some substitutions as they try out some of their youngsters such as Verdi, Oduamadi, Strasser, Merkel, Novinic along with experience players like Antonini, Yepes and Marco Amelia. This changes gives a bit stability especially in defense as Yepes manage to prove his worth by performing a solid display after replacing Kaladze, however the lack of creativity upfront with the absence of Ronaldinho and Pirlo seems evidence especially with the poor display of some players such as Oddo, Abate, Jankulovski and Kala.
This result surely will give a strong warning for Milan’s new coach Massimiliano Allegri who has a difficult task ahead of him especially should the team won’t be adding at least two more players or releasing the likes of Oddo, Jankulovski and Kaladze. Those three players still disappoints the fans on today’s game as instead of delivering the goods, the three provided more errors which resulted in some booing by the Milanisti.
However, this defeat shouldn’t be taken as a verdict of the Rossoneri’s chances next season but simply a warning for Allegri that he needs to work harder if he wants to have a successful first year as Milan’s coach. Not only that, this defeat might open up the management’s eyes in trying to get new players that the squad still needs and also ship out those that won’t contribute much so the Italian giant can really be competitive next season.
