There’s a sense of déjà vu drifting through the July and August chatter, between a deal that gets unlocked and a sale that begins to waver.
It only took a single rumor, Galliani back at Milan, to set in motion a machine of memory that, for the Rossoneri fans, always runs at 300 km/h. Rumors, whispers, speculation. No official denials. Which, in certain circles, is as good as a half-confirmation.
So let’s allow ourselves to be carried away. Not because we truly believe it. But because we need to.
A name, a story: Adriano Galliani
Anyone who has loved Milan even once in the past forty years knows Adriano Galliani. Not just the CEO, not just Silvio Berlusconi’s right-hand man, not just the man who negotiated for superstars as if they were stickers and brought them to the Milanello sports centre like it was the most normal thing in the world. But the symbol of an era when Milan was Milan. A mythological creature that won, dazzled, and inspired.
Galliani was ‘The Condor’, as they called him at the club: patient, silent, strategic. He would swoop in on the transfer market when no one expected it. He would steal deals from under rivals’ noses with a handshake and a crooked smile.
He was the man who brought Marco Van Basten, Andriy Shevchenko, Ricky Kaká, Zlatan Ibrahimović to Milan. And together with Silvio Berlusconi, he built one of the most glorious football dynasties in the history of the sport.
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The Milan of dreams (and European nights):
Speaking of the legendary executive Adriano Galliani again, with him, AC Milan was a symphony. It was the former captain (and director), Paolo Maldini lifting trophies. It was Arrigo Sacchi, Fabio Capello, Carlo Ancelotti. It was the San Siro venue shaking on Champions League nights. It was identity, true identity and that renown DNA.
Not just a club, but a footballing idea. International, elegant, but more importantly: powerful.
Today, with AC Milan still searching for itself between American ownership and hybrid identities, the idea of Adriano Galliani returning, even in a symbolic role, feels like a gentle caress to the heart of the fans who feel nostalgic to an era when Milan was a feared club in all of Europe.
And yet, it can only remain a suggestion, because this Milan is no longer 'Gallian's Milan'.
A different time and a different world...
Football has changed. The logic of the transfer market has transformed. Capital gains, algorithms, foreign ownership: it is really a new language, often cold and impersonal.
And in this digital, hyper-rational world, Galliani now seems like a figure from another era. A man of personal relationships, of handshakes, of deals made over coffee and late-night phone calls.
If he truly were to return, he would no longer find his Milan. Not the stadium, not the locker room, not the freedom to act as he once did. Berlusconi wouldn’t be there to back his every decision. The right people wouldn’t be in the right places. And perhaps, even the football he knew would not be there anymore.
But his mere presence even for a single day would be enough to reignite something. A symbol. A bridge between who we were and who we still want to become.
A collective nostalgia for the AC Milan faithful:
Maybe this rumor is nothing more than summer gossip. A mirage born from a thirst for greatness. Maybe mister Adriano Galliani will never return to AC Milan. But the fact that no one, not the club, not his entourage, rushed to deny it leaves a crack open. And that crack is enough to fuel the dreams of a fanbase that never truly stopped dreaming.
In a football world that runs, reinvents itself, and dematerializes, Adriano Galliani represents memory, solidity; the glorious past we are afraid we have lost forever.
A phone glued to his ear...
In the end, the image that endures is always the same.
Him, sitting in the stands next to the late Silvio Berlusconi, mobile phone glued to his ear.
The scene of an unrepeatable era. Maybe it would be right to leave it there, framed.
Or maybe, there is still a small space to let it live again, even if just for one final chapter of the novel. Because, as Milan Press describes, the real Milan never forgets where it came from.
