Football Season Guide

The glorious 30-year-long reign of Silvio Berlusconi at AC Milan came to an end last season, far from spectacularly, with the team having to be content for a last-second qualification into the Europa League. It was quite evident that Milan needed a complete overhaul following such a poor recent past. Nobody could have imagined, though, how much money their new Chinese owners would have actually invested. To this date, they have already spent almost 200 million Euros - quite some money especially considering how sceptically they had been welcomed by both pundits and supporters. Vincenzo Montella, who is at his second year with the club, will now be expected to mould a group of experienced and promising stars and turn them into a winning team. He will have to lead his boys towards the top 3 real soon or he might find himself under heavy pressure. For sure, he was given all a coach could dream of. First and foremost, the Devils succeeded in keeping Gianlugi Donnarumma at the club while he already had almost both feet out of the door. This can be considered as a great success as he is the designated goalkeeper for the future Italian national team and one of the best in his role all over the world. Not just that, Milan also managed stealing from Juventus, the kings of the Italian football for the last 6 campaigns, their best defender. Leonardo Bonucci was attracted by an impressive amount of money and the new project in Milan. Bonucci, Mateo Musacchio, who arrived from Villarreal, and Alessio Romagnoli, who is expected to be back to his best after a rather inconsistent past campaign, should form the back three in front of Donnarumma in a 3-5-2 formation. Andrea Conti, one of the best youths of the past season at Atalanta, and Ricardo Rodriguez, from Wolfsburg, will be playing on the flanks. Meanwhile, in the middle of the park, the likes of Franck Kessie, another signing from Atalanta, Lucas Biglia, the mastermind of Lazio in the past campaign, and Hakan Calhanoglu, from Bayer Leverkusen, should provide what's required. In the attack, Suso, one of the few ones to have deserved his stay at the club, will be joined by the promising Andre Silva while Fabio Borini will probably be on the fringes. However, Milan are still looking for another striker, since Gianluca Lapadula was let go and Carlos Bacca went to Villarreal. Many other players have left over the summer and many more are set to follow suit but only a couple of them deserve to be mentioned such Mattia De Sciglio and Andrea Bertolacci, who never really managed to maintain their best form.