Are A.C. Milan The New Real Madrid?

A few years ago Real Madrid were the talk of the football world. Along with the galacticos Zidane, Figo, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo (the original one!) and Raul the team seemed unbeatable.

Real Madrid had spent a record amount on players splashing out a cool 76 million euros on Zidane. This is the team who won the most European Cups in history. Despite all of this and even with an amazing team of stars they still underachieved. They just could not manage to dominate European football the way they were expected to.  The team was far from unbeatable and they were known around the world as a failure. The lack of passion and performance from their ageing Galacticos was plain to see.

Pundits commented that this proved once and for all that no matter how good your team is, if the players do not gel together then they can never be the best team in the world. It didn’t matter how many stars Real Madrid had, their lack of leadership and teamwork cost them and hence they have gone over 5 years without winning the European Cup.

It appears though that despite the problems of the mid naughties Real Madrid, a couple of years on A.C. Milan have started following down the same path.

It all started a couple of seasons ago when Milan signed Ronaldo from Real Madrid. Ronaldo was in the twighlight of an admittedly impressive career. However, he would soon get injured after having a very miniamal impact on the team, leaving for South America to finish off his playing days back home. This was a poor signing by anyones estimations, perhaps forgivable because it could have been a risk worth taking had Ronaldo found his old form.

This should have been a clear warning that signing great players towards the end of their careers was a mistake, especially for a team who are looking to rule world football.

Yet this season Milan have not changed their transfer policy and have signed another ageing Brazilian star in Ronaldinho. Now, whether or not Ronaldinho will turn out to be a great signing is yet to be seen and with strong rumours circulating that Milan are on the cusp of signing Beckham it seems that the club are happy to go for the ‘golden oldies’.

With a squad full of high profile over 30 year olds such as Shevchenko, Pirlo, Ambrosini, Zambrotta, Nesta, Seedorf, Inzaghi and Gattuso the fans of Milan must be getting concerned that come two or three years time their team will lose about half of its squad. The future just does not look that promising for this illustrious club at the moment.

The main problem is that A.C Milan have not qualified for the champions league this year and aren’t leading what appears to be another weak Serie A this season. This is bad news for a team who won the Champions League only 18 months ago. So why haven’t Milan adopted an Arsenal like approach and tried to sign quality youngsters rather than players who are past their prime?

The answer is not clear but perhaps part of the reasoning behind it is that high profile signings create more publicity and may help boss Ancelloti to hold onto his job by getting the fans behind the team. Milan have fallen from grace and for them to finish 5th in the Serie A last year was tragic. Ancelloti was not sacked however so perhaps his transfer policy is still convincing the fans and the board that Milan can be a force under his guidance within the next couple of years.

All is not lost for A.C. Milan, they still remain one of the richest clubs in the world and do have some potential within their younger players, they have already brought through Kaka who has become one of the best players in the world and with young Brazilian Alexandre Pato a particually exciting young player it may not be as bleak a future as one may think. Only time will tell as to whether A.C Milan will turn their fortunes around but they will have to improve if they want to be considered as the world’s best team in the near future.  If they continue going down the road that they are currently travelling around then they may be labelled as the new ‘Real Madrid’.