Why Coach Filippo Inzaghi Must Be His Own Man at AC Milan

Every week, Filippo Inzaghi puts his AC Milan players through drills, as any coach does. Closer to the end of the week, the boss shows up. President Silvio Berlusconi has visited the team on Fridays for the majority of the season, talking with the players and often telling them what he wants to see.

Forget the tactics from previous training sessions. Berlusconi wants his team to play in the box. He wants goals. He wants what he wants.

“The sponsors were very happy and the president is in great form,” CEO Adriano Galliani told milannews.it (h/t Football Italia). "He’s a super presence and fires everyone up.”

And here is where the real job starts for Inzaghi: balancing his own input as a coach while still giving Berlusconi and Galliani a voice.

It’s so hard for Inzaghi to be his own man with so much pressure from above. Yet he must be or risk losing credibility along the way.

After Milan’s most recent loss, a 1-0 defeat to Genoa, Galliani went straight to the locker room, ignoring the press along the way. According to Tuttosport (h/t Football Italia), Galliani told the team what they were doing wrong—and more importantly, why. He was basically doing Inzaghi’s job for him.

Antonio Calanni/Associated Press

Not that Inzaghi is doing a good enough job on his own. He has shuffled the lineup far too many times, and he is sticking to a 4-3-3 formation that is clearly not working. He is using players in wrong positions—among them Keisuke Honda on the wing—and there is no clear progress or plan on the field.

What’s worse, Inzaghi continues to see the good in the outrageously bad. He does not tell it like it is.

Maybe there is a reason why Inzaghi is so loath to tell the truth or take a stand. He saw what happened to former teammate Clarence Seedorf.

For those brief months in charge of Milan, Seedorf took authority and appeared to demand more than just the same mediocrity.

According to La Repubblica (h/t Colin O’Brien of Bleacher Report), Seedorf clashed with the top brass—perhaps because he wanted more from a club that was once great, perhaps because things went so stale from people who’ve been there for far too long.

Perennial assistant coach Mauro Tassotti told La Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t goal.com) that he felt like leaving the club after just a few months with Seedorf. But Tassotti has been around now for over a decade, and maybe Seedorf had some new, revolutionary ideas that upset some of the old guard.

"

Gazzetta writes that Seedorf had problems with many people at Milan: from Berlusconi, to Tassotti to Galliani to the players in his squad.

— Meytar Zeevi (@RossoneriBlog) May 29, 2014"

Seedorf did not hesitate to do things his own way.

He did a rather tame interview without the permission of the club and also decided to bench captain Riccardo Montolivo one game. According to La Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t Rossoneri Blog), the leader of the Milan ultras even suggested that Seedorf did not want three-quarters of the Milan squad.

Frankly, three-quarters of the squad was not Milan-worthy anyway.

Seedorf didn’t listen to Berlusconi, not like Inzaghi. The president wanted to see Mario Balotelli and Giampaolo Pazzini together, but they hardly were.

Of course, it’s easier to replace a coach, so Seedorf was fired. But he had the confidence to ask questions. He did not settle for little.

Antonio Calanni/Associated Press

Inzaghi has so far stepped aside and allowed time and space to those very people that Seedorf unnerved. This is either a political move or a mark of a coach who has not found a way to put a mark on his team. Either way, it’s passive coaching, and the results show that it’s not working so far.

It’s very easy to see Inzaghi as a puppet, as someone who is just taking orders from above and obeying every word. It’s certainly hard to negotiate an environment where Berlusconi is dictating more than usual.

In the end, Inzaghi has to start doing things his own way—even if that comes with risks.

“He needs to do what he feels like doing," former Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti told Milan Channel (h/t Football Italia), "because it's ultimately his job to make the decisions."