"Come, let me put your dad on the phone."
This is how Adrien Rabiot recalled the club manager of Olympique Marseille, Giovanni Rossi, would address him when he had to pass him Massimiliano Allegri on the line. The French midfielder told this anecdote in an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport on June 2, when his bond with the new Milan coach, so close as to resemble that between father and son, already seemed to belong to Arcadia, the timeless ideal space of Greek mythology. He seemed so firmly an OM player that he admitted openly, "if he calls me I will always be ready to talk to him."
And yet, as we know, behind those kind words was hidden either a prediction or simple intuition. How many times have Allegri and Rabiot spoken in recent days? And what did they say? Did they speak as father and son or as coach and possible player? We know that after the fight with Rowe, Rabiot was dropped from the squad and put on the market, but we also know that the rift with Marseille seemed on its way to being healed. Something in recent days got in the way, and that something might have been Allegri himself.
On the eve of Lecce - Milan, Allegri still denied being in contact with his former player. When asked if he had spoken with Rabiot after the exclusion from Marseille’s squad, he answered cautiously: "No, not since before the holidays. Adrien is a boy I am fond of. He is a Marseille player. I am emotionally attached to him because we worked together." Was it a bluff from a skilled poker player? Likely.
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It is hard not to think he was the one pulling the strings, convincing Rabiot not to patch things up with Marseille and lobbying Milan’s management to bring him to his new home with his putative father, enough to break the rule of the 5 million euro salary cap (Rabiot will earn 5.5, becoming the highest-paid in the squad, ahead of Leao and Nkunku).
The sale of Yunus Musah and the injury to Jashari facilitated the arrival of the Frenchman, but it was still a bit unusual, both for the way it came about and for how it changes the structure of Milan’s midfield. There will be time to analyze the tactical aspects, but it is already clear that Milan will be Rabiot plus ten, as Juventus had been Rabiot plus ten.
Allegri coached the Frenchman for 128 matches across three seasons so far before his arrival to Milanello, the player he used the most in that stretch. He fielded him almost every time he was available: 45 appearances the first year, 48 the second, 35 the third. The result was 16 goals and 11 assists in total, with the Coppa Italia as the only trophy, in that famous night at the Olimpico when Allegri, as they say, lost it, ending up sacked the next day. Rabiot was among the first to dedicate a post to him on social media, with a message not at all artificial (despite the mistakes): "You will be remembered as one of the most victorious coaches in Juventus history. You deserved a different farewell. Thank you for everything Mister and good luck."
And yet one could argue that in the Juventus story of those years, Allegri and Rabiot should have been antithetical. The Frenchman arrived in Turin just after Allegri’s first cycle ended, when he was replaced by Sarri. With his elegant football formed in a positional play temple like PSG, Rabiot was seen as one of the players to lead the transition from Allegri’s results-oriented football to Sarri’s possession football. But that revolution failed, and two seasons later Allegri returned to the Juventus bench, as pointed out by Ultimo Uomo.
As soon as the news came, Rabiot was quick to say that two years earlier he had signed "also because I knew he was on the bench. Allegri is a coach who won a lot with Juve." At the time it may have sounded like flattery for the new boss, but today it takes on a completely different meaning. Did Rabiot already know before even meeting him that Allegri would be his ideal coach?
In his first press conference back at Juventus, Allegri mentioned Rabiot by name, putting him among the players "with goals in their legs" alongside the strikers. Shortly after he also revealed that he had wanted Rabiot at Juventus back in 2019, before leaving him to Sarri, who did not appreciate him. In his first two years at Juventus, Rabiot had already earned the nickname "Crazy Horse," thanks to a Caressa commentary, a nickname that fit Allegri’s passions etymologically.
Perhaps that is why from the start Allegri made him one of his lieutenants, despite performances that were not always convincing. On February 25, 2021, Gazzetta dello Sport published the article "Physique and potential: why Rabiot appeals to Allegri despite the errors." Giovanni Albanese wrote that Rabiot "continues to alternate good things with unforgivable blackouts, lacking in consistency and thus always below expectations. Yet his use remains very high, almost indispensable." At the end of the season Rabiot had scored zero goals, but played 3,352 minutes, behind only Szczesny and de Ligt. Allegri even used him for a stretch as a wide midfielder, later trying him as a holding midfielder, just to always have him on the pitch.
It was in their second season together that their bond became what we know today. Paradoxically, all summer Rabiot, with his contract expiring, was close to a move to United. "I spoke to him before the possible transfer," Allegri later recounted, "I told him he was valued here and that I consider him a great player with significant room for improvement." Rabiot turned down the English courtship and started the season strongly, showing real progress. Allegri blessed him with one of his mystical lines: "He has a different engine than the others." Days later Rabiot scored a brace against Maccabi and said: "I always give one hundred percent on the pitch and in training, this is why the coach trusts me. For him it is important to have a player who can give balance to the team."
Allegri and Rabiot's relationship became increasingly symbiotic:
Adrien went to the winter World Cup in Qatar with France and made sure to thank Allegri publicly: "He is very important to me, he helps me progress and improve in my game. He often pushes me to attack. He often repeats that I am a player who can score many goals and be decisive." On his return, however, came a problem: his contract was expiring and renewal seemed impossible. His strong World Cup performances pushed the club to put him on the market to avoid losing him for free, but Allegri did not want to let him go. He praised him more and more often in interviews, perhaps sending messages to Rabiot, perhaps to the club. "He is very good both at finishing and at breaking up play," he said after a win against Fiorentina with a Rabiot goal.
Rabiot stayed ("Allegri satisfied," headlined Gazzetta at the time), but it was a tough season for Juventus: the club was penalized for false capital gains, then the penalty was revoked, then reinstated. Between injuries and a poor transfer market, Allegri rotated through 98 lineups in 98 matches after his return. The only certainty? The Frenchman, most used both by matches and by minutes, absent only when suspended or injured. Against Sporting he scored his eleventh goal of the season, decisive to reach the Europa League semifinals. Allegri was beaming: "He has the qualities but must still improve, sometimes he gets close to the area and does not shoot. He must improve, but he has improved in passing and has become important, extraordinary."
He scored on opening day against Udinese and it all seemed set to repeat ("He is at the peak of his football maturity, he has goals in his engine. He knows how to play football," said Allegri after the match), but then Rabiot slowed down. Despite the difficulties, or perhaps because of them, on October 21 Allegri gave him the captain’s armband for the first time, curiously a few days before a meeting with the club about renewal. In that match against Milan, Allegri ended up in one of his trademark outbursts in stoppage time. Rabiot commented with a smile: "The coach is like that. He always wants to win and to give 100 percent until the end. He gives us energy that way, he is good."
Head coach Massimiliano Allegri explained the armband (he would captain eight matches) by saying that "it is right that he climb the hierarchy." The Frenchman’s vocal growth in those months was perhaps the clearest sign of the relationship of trust between the two. Always reserved and quiet, he suddenly became the megaphone for the coach and the club. He was the first to talk about the Scudetto, while the team was locked in a tight battle with Inter, he publicly called out Gagliardini on social media after Monza’s draw, he vented after the defeat to Inter that compromised the season by writing that "it is difficult to play 11 against 12."
After that defeat Juventus’ situation worsened. They began to lose points quickly, risking fourth place, and Allegri’s position started to wobble. Rabiot was one of the voices preaching calm, and with words that, if not specified as his, could easily be mistaken for Allegri’s: "We must try to stay calm especially because there is a final to play on Wednesday. These things happen in football. The group is a bit young and inexperienced, so it makes sense. Football is like this, it is a mental thing, not technical."
It is striking that these were his last words as a Juventus player under Allegri. Three days later came the Coppa Italia win and the coach’s dismissal. In the summer, despite Thiago Motta reportedly being very interested in him, Rabiot declined Juventus’ offers, ending up at Marseille in September. One year of forced separation, and now the return to Allegri at Milan.
Many coaches have player-protégés, think of Conte and Lukaku, or Guardiola and Thiago Alcantara, but the bond between Allegri and Rabiot is more particular. In part because it involves two men apparently so different, a former languid, thin playmaker from Livorno with a passion for the sea and horses, and an elegant, powerful French midfielder who seems to live in a world of his own.
Their relationship was built of course on the pitch, in tactics and training, but it also seems to work on a more intangible level, that of friendship, if not kinship. Allegri and Rabiot, almost friends.
