And here I thought Bayern Munich had a bad restart from the World Cup. AC Milan have had one of the worst restarts to club football out of all the major European leagues as they have fallen 12 points behind in the Serie A title race, they got knocked out of the Copa Italia, and they were blown away by Inter in the Supercopa Final.
Has a club have as worse of a restart as AC Milan have suffered? I don’t think so.
Prior to the World Cup break this past December, AC Milan were steadily keeping tabs on Serie A leaders Napoli and mounting their own title defense as they sat on 36 points, which was only five points behind the league leaders at the time.
Everything was going well as they had a date in the Supercopa Italiana Final against archrival Inter Milan, they were set to face off against midtable Torino in the Copa Italia Round of 16, and they were obviously the closest title rival to Napoli with their 2nd place standing.
Really good first half (or thereabouts) to the season, right?
Well, in the span of a month, Milan has thrown that all a way as they have only won one game out of six (in all competitions) since Serie A’s January 2nd restart. Two draws, one to Roma and another to Lecce, a 4-0 spanking just this last weekend from Lazio, a 1-0 loss in the Copa Italia to Torino, and a 3-0 hammering from Inter in the Supercopa Italiana Final has derailed everything Milan worked so hard to build.
Now, not only have they dropped to being in just in two competitions (the Champions League and Serie A) and basically blew their best chances for silverware, but they also face the serious possibility of dropping to 3rd, 4th, or even 5th in the league with Inter, Lazio, Roma, and Atalanta all catching up to Milan.
With the two draws, AC Milan tenuously holds its 2nd place position with 38 points, but Lazio’s win over them has moved them up to 3rd place with 37 points, Inter Milan’s win over Verona a week ago has them in 4th place also on 37 points, Roma’s back-to-back wins over Fiorentina and Spezia has them in 5th place on 37 points as well, and Atalanta sit in 6th place on 35 points due to their 3-3 draw against Juventus a few days ago.
Needless to say, the Top-4 race is extremely tight now that Juventus has been casted off into midtable due to their 15-point deduction. And AC Milan are really feeling the pressure.
So, what do I think this horrific drop in form is down to? If I had to place it on one thing, I’d say fatigue. Namely, World Cup and general post-title win fatigue.
That may seem like a cope out answer as all the top clubs in Europe had players suit up for their countries in Qatar, but Milan’s stars seem to have been abnormally affected by the rigors of the tournament. Every game I’ve watch of Milan since the break they’ve been sloppy, sluggish, and slow, giving their opponents easy opportunities to run in behind their high-line and shoot at will.
And, as seen in the Lazio and Inter games, a lot of those shots turned into goals.
As for the post-title fatigue, that shouldn’t be too surprising for a group of players that have only recently played Champions League football and won the Scudetto for the first time. In fact, the only player who played Champions League football and won the Scudetto in their career on the Milan roster prior to the past two seasons is the legendary Zlatan Ibrahimovic. And he has missed most of the season with a knee injury.
Thus, this dip in form makes sense given the players inexperience with winning major honors, though manager Stefano Pioli better get these players back on track quickly or else the club will find itself outside the Top-4 in no time.
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