How AC Milan won the title … without the ball



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AC Milan broke the stats. If you were to believe the underlying numbers in the conclusion to the Serie A season Milan would never have clinched the Scudetto. But they did.

Jon Mackenzie was wrong, but he explains how they did it.

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47 opiniones en “How AC Milan won the title … without the ball”

  5. The very high line of defense was one of the reasons why Romagnoli struggled. He lacks the necessary pace to cope with very quick players on the counter and isn't the most experienced (Kjaer lacks pace but makes up for it with positional intelligence thanks to his experience), whereas Kalulu and Tomori love to those speed battles. Pioli is a very tactical coach. What he achieved with Milan last season was by no means a means feat. Hopefully, now that we have a potentially solid trequartista in Charles De Ketelaere, and potentially Adli (if he works on his shooting), Milan can become less predictable in attack and, invariably, more dangerous. Forza Milan per sempre!

  12. To be honest i was the same i thought milan were definitely going to compete for the scudetto but they were by no means obvious winners in fact there was no obvious winner although on reflection napoli, inter and milan were the best teams in the league. frankly milan overachieved you think of the deficiencies in the team in terms of lacking creativity in the midfield or having a right wing which was ineffective at scoring or providing assists than up front a 35 and 41 year old strikers than halfway through the season kjaer goes down with a huge injury. again this season it seems really open at this stage have to wait to see if clubs improve their squads before the end of the transfer window.

  26. Pulling the extra man up from the CB positions was crucial. Even Kjaer did it before his injury. Kjaer’s role was to mark the lone striker, especially people like Belotti, Immobile, Zapata, Osimen, so if they tried to drop in to receive the ball with their backs to goal, Kjaer would be all over them and wouldn’t allow them to turn. Nearly every time Kjaer was marking someone high up the field the striker would have to pass it backwards or else Kjaer would foul him. This made it so Kjaer didn’t need to be fast, just effective, which he is. Then Kalulu inherited that role for the most part due to his impressive anticipation of the play. Kalulu is smart as hell and reads the games like a master already. He’s not the strongest and he’s not the best at one v ones but if he’s in the right position at the right time you simply can’t get any time of day when the ball is passed to you. Then Tomori covers the spaces left open when the CB pushes up. I remember Kalulu won the ball at the halfway line and then began to make a forward run like a striker after he passed it off to a teammate. Incredible dedication and intensity from a young player.

  27. Another key thing Pioli did was manage the stamina of his team superbly well. Often times Milan fans would criticize his lineup selection or his substitutions but he was very vocal about making sure his players were well rested and ready to give 100% each game. His use of Krunic, Rebic, Saelemaekers, Messias, Florenzi all helped immensely in keeping key players rested for big games. There were also many games that Theo seemed to be instructed to not make so many runs forward to preserve his energy. We didn’t really have a backup LB and Theo played a ton of games because of it. Making sure Theo wasn’t sprinting all game every game allowed him to be explosive when he needed to be. People also criticized Leao for being “lazy” in the beginning of the season but his role was to play as more of a wider striker who didn’t have as many defensive duties, giving him time to relax off the ball and conserve his strength. No point in having all players running around 100% all game, every game, and Pioli did a good job managing the rest cycles.

  29. Nah man. The only reason Bbilan won it was because FC INTER gifted it away because they were more interested in Champions League glory vs Liverpool. So next season FC INTER will take it back. Forza INTER ! ☝️☝️

  31. AC Milan also Dominated quite alot of teams, If you look at the shot count they usually have more shots then the opposition on target. Defence was Elite, but my point is the attack was too, especially Rafael Leao

  33. It was a collective effort of players stepping up at the right times. We already knew Kalulu and Tomori was a solid CB pairing (some may say Kjaer's injury was a blessing in disguise) and Maignan was an amazing goalkeeper but had it not been for Tonali's late goals, Leao's assists, Theo's late goal, Giroud's clutch game vs Inter, Bennacer's late goal and so many other clutch games where we pulled out 3 points we would've not won that title.

  41. I agree totally with your opinion and the tactics you showed, but my main problem is that you forgot a lot of key things in this video. For instance, the decisions made by refferies in this season were partly literally a disgrace to football. You can find statistics that describe how many more points milan would have got if the reffery would have chosen the right decision in key moments of the game. In total they were 13 points for ac milan and only 2 for inter. The other thing that was a surprise this season, besides obviously pierre kalulu, was rade krunic. He wasnt very good offensively, but he played a key role in pressing the opponents creative midfielder like brozovic who‘s main goal is to get the ball to the opponents „third“ of the pitch. And the last thing that was good exhibited by milan was the player switchibg roles on the field. Every outfield player besides tomori, maybe giroud and kalulu were often switching positions in game to disturb the opponents in attack. For instance theo switched positions with franck kessie and then with leao, or tonali switched positions with salemakers or diaz. All the players could play many different positions in order to make the attack more dangerous and more complex for the opponents team. The last thing was also ibrahimovic, who took a lot of pressure from the guys outside of the field and in my opinion has to be mentioned also. I had to write this comment since i wasn‘t very satisfied with your analysis, because it lacked a lot of key elements especially regarding the attack, but still you managed to describe the defencive style very good which i enjoyed. I wish you a pleasent day !

  43. Milan didn't play the best football last year, but they showed more composure and grit than Inter, who fumbled the scudetto away. Sadly I don't expect Milan to do anything in the upcoming Champions League, they lack sharpness on the counter to do well in Europe. I think Real Madrid's CL victory shows that Italian tactics are far from obsolete in the modern game, but Milan simply doesn't have good enough personnel to compete in Europe. I feel that this is the first scudetto-winner (albeit deserving), that really accentuate the downturn of quality in Serie A.

    (coming from a viola fan)

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