Why AC Milan's Carlos Bacca Is on the Brink of Hitting Top Form

Carlos Bacca is the jewel of AC Milan's big summer spending spree.

Costing the club €30 million, the Colombia international was an integral part of the last two Europa League champions and finished in the top five on La Liga's scoring charts last season.  After Milan failed in their efforts to sign Jackson Martinez from Porto—he eventually landed at Atletico Madrid—they needed to sign a comparable striker, and they did so when they lured Bacca away from Sevilla.

As the season turns into an important run that will lead into the winter break, Bacca looks like he is about to take his game to the next level and show just how good a buy he was.

Milan absolutely needed an upgrade up front.  Since the 2012 sale of Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Paris Saint-Germain, Milan has used the likes of Alexandre Pato, Antonio Cassano, Giampaolo Pazzini, Bojan Krkic, Maxi Lopez, Robinho, Stephan El Shaarawy, Mario Balotelli, Alessandro Matri, Fernando Torres and Mattia Destro to lead the line.

Of that group, only four had a modicum of success.  Cassano didn't score much, but he did notch 10 assists in only 16 games in 2011-12—a season cut short by a heart issue that required surgery.  Pazzini scored 15 goals in his first season with the club but no more than four in subsequent campaigns.

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Stephan El Shaarawy marauded through Serie A and Europe for half a season in 2012 before his then-20-year-old frame was ground down by overuse.  Mario Balotelli quickly supplanted him and then went on a scoring binge after arriving in the winter of 2013. Balotelli couldn't keep up his scoring form the next season, although his 14 goals and six assists were a respectable haul for a team that missed out on European competition.

After all that failure, the team needed a reliable goalscorer.  Bacca, who scored 45 between La Liga and Europe over the last two years at Sevilla—including the winner in last year's Europa final—is that man.

He's shown it in the first two months of the season.  Bacca has seen the field either as a starter or a sub in all eight of Milan's games this season and has scored four times.  It's an impressive start, especially considering the difficulty strikers can often have adjusting to Serie A, which is probably the hardest league to score in in the world.

Even more impressive is the fact that, according to WhoScored.com, Bacca has been doing this on only 1.5 shots per game.  Of his 12 total shots, seven of them have been on target—an incredible accuracy rating.

Bacca is already proving to be the kind of striker defenses need to fear.  Even better for the Rossoneri, he's likely only just getting started.

A tremendous lack of service has restricted Bacca this season.  At times his midfield has seemed incapable of getting him the ball.  He has been put in some fairly impossible positions, a key factor in the fact that his average number of unsuccessful touches, 2.4, is more than 100 percent higher than any of his previous European seasons.

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Now that Milan's midfield is starting to ever-so-slightly solidify, Bacca can expect better service.  Giacomo Bonaventura in particular has been Milan's best outfield player, and if he is allowed to play to his strengths in the middle of the field, he can be the reliable link between Bacca and the rest of the team.  With Juraj Kucka a pleasant surprise and Andrea Bertolacci actually showing signs of life on Saturday, Milan might actually be able to get their star man the ball with regularity.

The second big plus coming for Bacca is Balotelli's return from injury.

The 25-year-old returned to Milan on loan after a lost season at Liverpool in 2014-15, and he looks to be a changed man.  The fact that this is likely his last chance at the top level—or perhaps even something else, like the tragic death of his adoptive father over the summer—has become a catalyst for change.  Balotelli has looked much more like Good Mario than Bad Mario thus far this season.

He's missed the last few weeks with a leg injury, but before he went down, he showed an explosiveness and danger that Luiz Adriano, the other option to partner with Bacca up top, has failed to show.

It's clear that the Serie A learning curve, which Bacca has mastered fairly quickly, has been harder for the Brazilian to master.  The transition from the Ukrainian Premier League to the Italian top flight is indeed a steep one, and Adriano is going to need more time to get it right.  His style of play is also similar to that of Bacca—so similar that they may not be compatible as partners.

Balotelli is better with the ball at his feet and knows his way around Italian defending.  If he's truly as motivated and focused as his early efforts show he could be, he'll be a much more dynamic partner for the Colombian.  If he becomes a viable second threat, defenses will not be able to key on Bacca, giving him more room to operate and making him far more dangerous.

If Bacca gets better service and a better partner up top, he will likely turn into a terror for opposing defenses.  If they get it right, the Rossoneri may be able to claim a signing that could rival the production that Carlos Tevez gave Juventus—albeit at nothing close to the economic bargain the Argentine gave the Bianconeri.

Bacca is poised to turn into a major player in the race for the Capocannoniere.  So long as he's put in the right situation, he'll make the jump very soon.