AC Milan Ought to Listen to Paolo Maldini for Once

Every few months or so, one of the Italian newspapers does an interview with Paolo Maldini. Maybe because he always makes sense in a league, in a country that usually does not.

Mostly he talks about AC Milan, his career club where he played for 25 years, making 902 appearances. And he usually talks about their problems. 

“Lots of things have changed,” he told La Gazzetta dello Sport this week (h/t Forza Italian Football). “This Milan is a new group with a new coach.”

“Without money, the management is complicated. But their acquisitions show that the club has planned little.

“They should focus on the objective: if that is to win, then they have not done enough. This is not a team that is built to win.”

It is not the first time Maldini has criticized Milan. In a 2012 interview with La Reppublica (h/t Football Italia), he famously said that the club had lost the magic that made them great. He said the team had lost all the leadership. 

Tullio M. Puglia/Getty Images

And it’s true: When Maldini retired in 2009, Milan began to lose their identity. Other veterans retired or left—his partner Alessandro Nesta, the general Gennaro Gattuso, Kaka and Clarence Seedorf. These were all leaders. Milan without a compass.

But Maldini always thought that Pippo Inzaghi would make it. Now it is Inzaghi who is trying to recapture that magic, trying to bring the fans back to the stands.

There are still limits. Inzaghi does not have a world-class squad at his disposal. Many of the players are stop-gaps: Fernando Torres on loan, a 32-year-old Alex in the middle of defence, Sulley Muntari and Michael Essien, the list goes on. 

The money just isn’t there—even if it is. Silvio Berlusconi, worth $7 billion according to Forbes, decided to stop spending. Without the money, without the leadership, without a true direction, Milan lack the necessary pillars to build a championship squad.

And Maldini is one of those pillars that they no longer have—and that the club choses to ignore. Maldini said in 2012 that “they don’t particularly want me there,” even though he just wants to “give the magic back to Milan.”

Maldini has no desire to be a coach or a director. “I am not interested in a role just for the prestige of it,” he told La Reppublica. He just wants to bring his knowledge of the game and repay the club for everything that he has won.

But they won’t let him. No one has really contacted him. He is not welcome or invited to work with them. And he won’t work with any other team in Italy. He is still loyal after all these years of neglect.

Maybe he speaks too much truth. Maybe he makes too much sense. Maybe CEO Adriano Galliani sees him as a direct threat to his job. Because maybe Maldini could do it better. It is all politics at the end, but it is senseless for such a legend to be shut out of a club he defined. 

But he will not “go out of his way” for Milan. And that is in line with Maldini, a man of principles and a man who never said anything unless he truly believed what he was saying. 

His words are sharp, pointed and smart. When he speaks, all the fans listen. Maybe Milan should too.