AC Milan's CEO Ivan Gazidis sat down with those at Il Corriere dello Sport and entrusted their microphones with a long interview. Here are all his statements:
On Ibrahimovic:
" It was surprising to meet him. He's extraordinarily divisive: either you love him or you hate him. I think he invests in this to motivate himself. He is an intelligent man and also has a soft side, which he expresses in the relationship with the team. It is not enough to roar like a lion on the field to earn the respect of your teammates. Moments - so to speak - of tenderness are very useful. A part of him is destined for the public image. However, the motivational component prevails: Ibra is never satisfied, it is always over the top, the lion feels it on him. And of course he doesn't think he is God. The desire to be something more, and different, is in his nature. The group is strongly stimulated by his presence. And it is a remarkable fact that, at 39, Ibra still manages to compete at these levels and to be so determined to win, it is exceptional."
On the excellent combination Ibra-Pioli:
"There is an excellent balance. And just as Ibra surprised me with his tender side, so Pioli impressed me with his character. I was impressed by Stefano's strength, as well as his sensitivity."
On the young AC Milan:
" When I arrived at Milan, I believe even on the first day, I said that we would build the team on young people, but without excluding expert elements who would strengthen the group by giving them guidance. I never said no to Ibra. In fact, he was the one who said no to us one year, he didn't want to leave the Galaxy. I favored his arrival and, moreover, I suggested the purchase of Fabregas, which did not go through for other reasons."
On Donnarumma:
"I don't want to reveal the details, nor the timing and I don't know the boundaries of the relationship between Gigio and Raiola. In the end, of course, the decision is always the player's . What I can say is that Gigio was an exceptional professional, every single day, and in the last match against Atalanta there was no one happier than him for qualifying to the Champions League. I have an absolute esteem for him, as well as respect for his choices. No negativity. He did what he thought was best for him, and there are reasons on his side , but I don't mention which ones."
On Raiola:
"We have no problem with Raiola, we are on good terms. Certain decisions are made by the players, not by their agents. We analyze the individual cases without any prejudice."
On Maldini:
"The team is above everything and every person. So the point is to find something or someone that works for it, and that something or someone can be the result of original choices. From the outside people may think that everyone operates within fixed parameters, this is not the case. We work as a team, with other people involved, not just Maldini and Massara. I believed in Paolo from the first moment, I knew he would become a top level sports director and that's exactly what he is today."
On the mercato:
"The fans are intelligent and aware, the stages of the journey that our team has undertaken are not in the dark. Football cannot grow by repeating itself. We have learned something in the past twelve months and we have a duty to exploit the new information. The covid has to do with it up to a certain point, the difficulties were evident even before the lockdown. A global adjustment is taking place which must precede a substantial renewal. The market that we will see this summer will be different from that of last summer and from all those that preceded it. Our goal is to continue to be ambitious and optimistic, to improve the team by following the right path and combining results and financial stability. This is important, because without stability the team falls back into uncertainty. Discipline and clarity are needed."
On the relationship with the fans:
"What is happening with our fans is really special, never seen before. At the beginning - and I can understand the reasons - they asked many questions: can this path work? It's so different from the way AC Milan have moved in the past… But now confidence is growing. I've never seen anything like what happened at Casa Milan: seeing our fans under the offices to express their support was an extremely powerful signal: this sense of unity and sharing is an exceptional boost."
On his goal:
"My attitude has nothing to do with the fund and with the possibility that it can sell: I don't know if this will happen in one, three or ten years. The vision is very clear: to bring Milan back to the top. Then, of course, the fact that these funds enter football stems from the failure of regulation and organization. Many of these situations occur because some teams are in trouble - and it is in the difficulties that the funds step in and invest. Football can have much stronger properties if our business model is better regulated and if the rules are respected by everyone. This is another big goal: to have the best owners, strong and solid. If you have a crazy business model, you won't have strong owners, but crazy owners or funds that collect the pieces."
The Super League affair:
"The Super League, as it was conceived, is dead. However, the problems that led to the project remain unaffected. Everyone in football, especially those in charge of regulating it, must seriously reflect on the origins of the evils and on what can be done, together, to achieve better and sustainable football. I worry when it comes to winners and losers. I don't see winners. I hope there is no rupture. A trial will be held at the European Court of Justice, I am not a competent lawyer, but dialogue is always the most valid solution. Gianni Infantino said something about it, I won't add anything else… People talk about greed. Our club lost 200 million last year. Is it greedy to try to get to zero, the breakeven point? Is it greedy to say that we would be happy if we reached it? Losing 200 million means something has broken. We are not unique, it affects everyone."
On his start at Milan:
"If I think about the challenges we had to face at Milan, from day one, we had to get the score back, because the red had passed the guard level, and at the same time improve our performances on the pitch. If we had copied existing models, we would have failed both objectives. We had to do something breaking, find our own way of acting, otherwise we wouldn't have had any chance of avoiding the blind spot."
On Milan's path compared to Italian football's path:
"We are on a journey. The hard thing to accept is that there are no shortcuts. The good news is that there is nothing mysterious about this journey. Others have faced it before us and successfully. If we look at the Premier League, the basis of the relaunch are the stadiums. When English football hit rock bottom, the government encouraged the construction of new facilities. The comfort of the seats and the ease of access to the event have improved the public-football relationship. Families have been back to stadiums, as there was more security, and the quality of the experience has grown. Revenues and spending power jumped immediately. Other factors also contributed to the relaunch of football, such as Sky, and so on. The same thing happened in the United States. When MLS was founded, there were no dedicated stadiums."
On the new stadium:
"If we can build our stadium here in Milan, making it one of the best in the world, the most beautiful of all, then we can start something important for Italy too. I remain optimistic. Not just for Milan, but for football in general. Juventus with its stadium was dominant. With wider competition and stronger financially, the overall level will rise. The other thing that Italian football has to do is think about the future and beyond its own mental and cultural boundaries. When England stopped looking only at home, renouncing the historical self-referentiality, the decisive leap took place. The challenge is to make a team acquire a more optimistic mentality that came from a long period of difficulty. Sometimes you need a little naivety. In addition to strength, clarity and constancy."
Gazidis' idea of football:
"My training leads me not to underestimate even the strictly technical-tactical issues. Football is constantly changing and countries where the appearance of the pitch is neglected are hopelessly behind. What I mean by progressive football it is not necessarily a fixed concept, but a philosophy of approach that consists in asking questions and thinking about how sport can evolve. At the moment I notice that the transitions from one ball possession to another are becoming more and more important: those five seconds are decisive. Even one-on-one, individual duels have regained the importance they once had. In Italian football there were defined and overly repeated play patterns; now the one-on-one style seems to prevail - Atalanta practice it very well - and it is much more difficult to play against those who invest in duels and space."
"It's a circular idea. The athletic aspect has changed dramatically, however: today's footballers, compared to those of twenty and thirty years ago, are structurally different, have different skills and characteristics, often superior. The exercise sciences we use to achieve top-level performance are far more sophisticated. Another aspect is verticality. When a team recovers the ball, and therefore possession, they must find the fastest way to get closer to the opponent's goal, even at the cost of taking risks. The director is no longer the number 10, who has the skills and the flair to find the right passage, but the whole system. It is the system that becomes the point guard. There is no one way to play football, there are many different styles. Antonio Conte has achieved numerous successes by playing in a completely different way from what I have just described."
