On October 1, 2020, Milan played at Rio Ave's home and, after an endless series of penalty kicks, qualified for the group stage of the Europa League. Yesterday, after just two and a half years (929 days to be exact), the Rossoneri secured their place in the Champions League semifinals. This is a major achievement that Il Diavolo has not reached in 16 years, and it further demonstrates the success of the project that the club on Via Aldo Rossi began four years ago with Elliott and is now continuing with RedBird Capital Partners.
If a project is successful, credit should be given first and foremost to the ownership, or rather the ownerships that have been in place in recent years. In fact, Elliott saved the club from the brink of collapse after Yonghong Li's disastrous management, got the finances back on track, and, with targeted investments, formed a young and talented team. Less than a year ago, there was then the transition to RedBird, another American fund that decided to continue on the path taken by the Singer family, as pointed out by Milannews.it.
Ownership provided the resources, while the sports area with Maldini and Massara made many top-level acquisitions (Leao, Tomori, Maignan, Theo Hernadez, Tonali, and Kalulu, just to name a few) and chose the right man to lead this young group, namely Stefano Pioli. The Rossoneri project has been ambitious from day one, but things are certainly going faster than everyone expected, including those working on at Casa Milan. In a short amount of time, AC Milan have returned to participating in the Champions League, then won the league title, and last night even returned among the top four teams in Europe. The more time passes, the more the Milan project proves to be successful.
