Why AC Milan Should Sell Stephan El Shaarawy

Stephan El Shaarawy is injured. It seems like he always is.

AC Milan have been patient with him for two years. They know what he could do: He carried the team as a 19-year-old. He became the youngest Milan player to score in a Champions League game and he scored 16 goals during the 2012-13 season.

We know the story by now. Things trailed off. El Shaarawy has not been the same. He looks lost. He has scored one Serie A goal since that breakout year, almost 700 days ago. 

But he’s still worth something. Potential is worth a lot these days, and El Shaarawy has it. Sell him now, and Milan could get a return on a player who could go the way of Alexandre Pato.

Remember him? Pato, the Brazilian prodigy who came to Milan as a teenager and scored more than 50 goals for the club. Then the injuries mounted, one after another, until he could not go a full 90 minutes without re-aggravating a part of his body.

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Pato blamed the MilanLab for his recurring problems. “They kept doing things in such a rush,” he told La Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t ESPNFC). He lost all of his confidence at Milan, to the point where he had to leave before damaging his career beyond repair.

He’s doing fine at Sao Paulo now, healthy in his home country, scoring goals again. Bids from Europe are coming back. He could make a return one day.

El Shaarawy may have to leave too, and Milan may have to sell him for whatever they can get back. This is a player who runs on confidence, and it’s currently on empty. Even when he was starting games this season, he was not the same dynamic forward that had burst onto the scene. He was left chasing the game, not setting the tempo, and it was heartbreaking to watch.

Remember that Milan paid €15.5 million for El Shaarawy. At what point do Milan begin to wonder about that investment? His value has shrunk by the year, even though there will be suitors in the summer. Maybe they should sell him before anything else happens.

El Shaarawy does have time. How awful if he should leave the club and become a superstar. That’s the ultimate risk. And that’s why clubs want him: El Shaarawy, like Pato, could simply be stuck in the wrong environment, one that will not allow him to flourish. Maybe El Shaarawy himself needs a restart. And maybe he will not be a standout player, and that’s OK.

This is when it’s hardest to judge a player: out injured with a broken foot, put to the test again and again, forced to rediscover what was really only half a season of good form. 

In the end, it’s a question about money. If Milan don’t care about their investment, they could move on and hope that their little pharaoh grows to take the throne. But this is Milan, and they do care. They have sold star players before, and it’s looking like they could—and maybe should—once more.