It takes a certain sort of poise to get away with wearing sneakers with a suit. Clad from collar to toe in Dolce & Gabbana’s finest, AC Milan’s players normally pull it off with fair aplomb, but on Tuesday night in London, it was an unfortunate match. The look recalled Ewan McGregor’s Renton shambling through a court appearance in Trainspotting more than the archetypal view of classic Italian style.
This was, of course, a view largely colored by Milan’s haphazard stagger to qualification at the Emirates Stadium. Warning of the potential of a similar capitulation to the one suffered in La Coruña in the 2004 Champions League quarterfinal was ridiculous, many said. Arsenal had been so comprehensively humbled in Italy three weeks before that the UK’s premier sports radio station, BBC FiveLive, opted to provide live commentary on Chelsea’s FA Cup replay at second-tier Birmingham City in preference to this assumed formality.
Yet if 90 minutes in London held plenty of surprises, it ended with the reinforcement of a latent feeling in Italy; that maybe coach Massimiliano Allegri isn’t quite the bee’s knees after all. The man who ended the Rossoneri’s long wait for a Serie A title may have made light of his previous lack of big-club managerial experience domestically, but Europe is a different story. Respected Milan-based journalist Tancredi Palmeri recently described Allegri’s work at the San Siro to this correspondent as “good, but not amazing”, and he speaks for many.
The Champions League or, as was, the European Cup means everything to Milan. Probably more than any club apart from Real Madrid (which had such a huge role in the competition’s very foundation, of course), the trophy with the big ears defines the very fabric of Milan’s being. It’s not Allegri’s fault that Milan hadn’t qualified for the Champions League quarterfinal in five years before this week, but until he shows the aptitude to help Milan rediscover some clout in the competition, feeling towards him will always be conditional. The 44-year-old had been awarded the Albo Panchina d'Oro (‘Golden Bench’) in 2009 for his sterling work at Cagliari, but not last season, despite guiding Milan to its first scudetto since 2004.
The last 16 defeat to Tottenham was a rather ugly fly in the ointment of a strong debut season for Allegri. The emasculating manner of that exit means it has rested on Milanese minds for longer than outsiders might have expected.
The symmetry of this near-miss being against Spurs’ north London rival does nothing to bury that bitter memory, despite progress. It’s not all about Allegri, though. That he even has an opportunity to forge a new chapter in Milan’s history is, to a degree, an admission of the club’s reduced means. That relative sparseness was evident throughout the Milan lineup, with the lack of options in a decimated midfield forcing the coach to field a front three. “I felt like I was always out of position playing with three forwards,” Zlatan Ibrahimovic told Gazzetta after the match.
Two of the substitutes were goalkeepers (Marco Amelia and Flavio Roma) and that another, Alberto Aquilani, was pressed into service two-and-a-half months after his last appearance accentuated the sense of make-do-and-mend. Yet the team that was fielded should still have done the job. Stephan El Shaarawy, who Allegri had predicted would do “great things” in the build-up to the game, may have spurned a great chance to calm Milanese nerves on the stroke of half-time, lifting wide from Urby Emanuelson’s pass, but this shouldn’t have been his fight.
Worryingly, it was the mainstays of Allegri’s team that creaked like floorboards in a haunted house. Ibrahimovic was as lost as he laudably admitted later, dropping into what was almost a central midfield role in the first half as he attempted to stem the Arsenal tide and exert some Milan control. His failure to kill the tie in the second half, dragging wide of an unguarded net after Wojciech Szczesny shanked a clearance, reeked of the tightness of nerves.
Just as disappointing but perhaps even more alarming was the equal jitteriness of Thiago Silva in the first period. Legend is sure to rewrite the opening 45 minutes of this extraordinary second leg as an Arsenal maelstrom, but the funny thing is that Milan was actually relatively comfortable for long periods. The doubts really entered the picture after Silva’s ghastly attempted clearance from Theo Walcott’s cross, which presented the excellent Tomas Rosicky with the opportunity to score the home side’s second. Allegri has every right to expect better from one of the world’s premier central defenders.
While the coach will continue to berated in some quarters for apparently allowing his side to be so psychologically deficient, it is arguably his fingerprints which are smeared all over Milan’s ticket for the last eight. In the much-needed second half regroup Philippe Mexès was a rock, as the away side grasped some order with the sort of defending which, had it been in place from the start, would have made this return the non-event that most expected.
It was the France defender who heralded Milan’s continuing predilection for a more athletic, robust backline, blasting away those lazy clichés about the ‘Dad’s Army’ of Carlo Ancelotti’s time. Mexès has often invited question about his sense of positioning during a globally successful career in Serie A, but his pace, strength and aesthetically perfect last-ditch tackling cover a multitude of sins. It personified the second half effort – and perhaps Allegri’s whole reign. It wasn’t pretty, but they got it done.
Goalkeeper Christian Abbiati certainly stepped up, too, of course. Milan’s CEO Adriano Galliani later told Milan Channel that his save to prevent Robin van Persie from scoring a tie-leveling fourth goal in the second period “will live on in the history of this club.” Yet one of the other most important contributions from an old head was by Mark van Bommel, with a twist. His fifth-minute booking for fouling Rosicky was an act of folly than worked out as a stroke of luck, forcing him to temper his usual combative nature, play within himself and – eventually – help to bring some equilibrium to the madness.
Still, few teams – or coaches – will go into the final stages of the Champions League with such scrutiny trained upon them. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, but Italy’s eyes are trained firmly on Allegri to see just how far he is capable of going.
