The aftermath of finishing in fifth place is already here and Leonardo will leave the club after less than a year.
Leonardo joined the Elliott management at Milan on July 25 but his adventure as the director of sport of the Rossoneri will come to an end tomorrow.
According to Gianluca Di Marzio and others, following the failure to qualify for the Champions League, Leo will hand in his resignation on Tuesday, thus leaving his office at Casa Milan after less than a year on the job.
At the base of the separation lies the fact that Leonardo and CEO Ivan Gazidis have different views in regards to the sporting plan of the club. While Gazidis’ decision is to focus on a young team that can grow its value, the Brazilian maintains the thought that some reinforcements of experience are needed for the squad, a notion that has been echoed by current coach Gennaro Gattuso.
The Italian newspapers have mainly linked Lille’s Luis Campos as the possible replacement of Leonardo in recent weeks, but Di Marzio claims that the ex-Monaco director of sport will not join the leadership but instead be used as an external mercato consultant, working for both Milan and Lille.
Therefore, Milan will need to appoint a new director of sport. Di Marzio believes that the Diavolo are inclined to offer the role to Paolo Maldini, but the legendary defender is also considering his future and is oriented towards leaving the club along with Leonardo.
RadioRossonera’s Pietro Balzano Prota has confirmed the news that Leonardo will leave and added that Gattuso is also reflecting on his future and he could resign as well.
This is the best news ever i think we start our own way to come back
I will agree with Leonardo on this you need well established players to carry team forward along with upcoming young players…experience counts in the big matches and I hope Gazidis doesn’t mess it up my adopting arsenal model buying cheap selling for profits this will lead us to no where…..anywaz forza milan
sorry to say… last year milan has bought good players but gattuso cant put them in good position… laxalt is good defense and attack in his old school but gattuso use him as backup… its happen with samu… and its happen with bakayoko… when he played with reguler, he become keys at milan… and I agree Milan now become like ajax, atlanta and arsenal… forget it about the past… milan new owner 80% bussiness and 20% for the club… we will get potensial player and will sell it… why?? this is what gazzidis did at arsenal… for 10 years arsenal… Read more »
So it means Gazidis is our Galliani 2.0 with full control over club’s business.
Galliani got rid of Braida, Gazidis got rid of Leo, Galliani closed the door to Maldini, Gazidis will show him one.
Sounds promising
Not entirely. The Elliot Fund wants to raise the value of the club and sell it to the highest bidder. What I believe will happen is that Milan will adopt the Ajax/Atalanta model and invest in young players with a coach that is good at developing them into world class talent instead of buying high profile players with high wages.
If we look at Ajax and Atalanta they certainly done better than teams like Milan who invested a lot more and don’t have anything to show for it.
Nick totally agreed with what you said but but there are two things, called pressure and expectations that comes with a club like milan and after seeing what we went through all these years with young players do you really think those young prospects will be able to flourish in the team like milan where expections are hogher and fans are demanding….my friend these things doesn’t come with clubs like Atalanta and Ajax so pressure is less expectations are lower hence young players flourish when there is lesser pressure on them unless you got some legendary figures or some seasonsed… Read more »
@Meer-1…Good point but I think with the right coach and the right players it can work. Don’t forget that Piatek, Paquetá, Cutrone, Kessie, Conti, Calabria, Caldara among others are under 25 years old. So we not talking about Primavera type players. The same can be said for Ajax and Atalanta players. These young players are easier to mold in a system compared to a prima-donna like Higuain or CR7 for example. Gazidis is known for taking the low cost route and Luis Campos is a masterclass with finding young talented players like Mbappe and Bernadotte Silva. My only hope is… Read more »
That would be a disaster (the Ajax/Atalanta model), but I agree it could very well be Elliot’s plan. Anyway, they are looking to cut the bill and the first one on their target imo is Donna.
@Baresis Dream…. Honestly, I don’t think it would be a disaster at Milan but it will critical for us to get the right players to balance the team. We have a good core group of players in defense like Romagnoli, Caldara, Conti, Calabria and RicRod. Our strikers are good if Cutrone stays. Depending on the new coach we might play with two strikers next season Piatek-Cutrone. So we just need another striker and possibly promote frank tsadjout to the first team. But It’s the midfield that needs some improvement next season especially if Suso, Calhanoglu and Bakayoko leave. Montolivo, Bertolacci… Read more »
Thing is nick, the atalanta/ajax model rarely succeeds, and it fits more to teams without much potential growth. We are still one of the biggest clubs in the world in terms of our fan base. I agree the FFP gives you little room to wiggle, but for me the way forward is with proven experienced players.
Ted u don’t know more than Elliot Gazidis is someone we can trust not like Leonardo who is lacking vision Elliot want to spend 200£ from their pocket +70£ sales of some our players Elliot want to buy 5 or 6 gud players to bring milan back if we give Leonardo that money am sure we will lose our money for rubbish players like castilejo laxalt paquata
Really? And I assume Gazidis himself told you that
Milan is not Ajax nor Atalanta nor Arsenal. Not a breeding club for big guns. AC Milan is a club that still holds second place in winning CL. And its how it should be treated
Arsenal have reportedly 60 millions available for summer transfers this year. Not so special considering they had Gazidis the Almighty
Ted keep dreaming my brother no one talk about history we are talking rebuilding our team milan right now ain’t milan that u are talking i think u forgot when last time we play champions league
I never forgot, but it seems you weren’t even there when we did play it
Embrace Gazidis the Almighty and his 4th spot Milan
And my friend what about financial fair play choking us through our veins how will you take care of that……
I never said we will buy one time all 6 players this summer we gonna sell 2 players like donnarumma suso and Hakan + we ship off around 4 then we can buy 3 quality players
Ashraf….my dear, I agree with u….cant understand why Leo brought Paqueta for 35million, a player who has no European experience n he was also for another Brazilian of 80million also without euro experience, is this a joke???…Samu cast n Laxalt WTF???……Only Piatek was a real signing…. we need to sell Donna,Suso,Samu,Laxalt,Biglia,Silva n buy Baka n Varetout(as CDM) n Gosens(as right half from Atalanta) + bring Rabiot as a free agent n a good proven coach…….then get ready for a good fight
Why do y’all want to sell Donna? There isn’t a better keeper his age and anyone close will cost big. You think reina is better? If Donna wants to stay then make him untouchable. If he wants to go then yes sell him. Also we need wingers and a attacking mid that can walk through 2-3 players. Those 2 positions need to be filled first no matter what. Sell suso hakan and a few other worthless players but we def need to keep Donna, cutrone and Roma
I’m worried as much as you are Ted.
Honestly I blame Gattuso on this. Leonard brought quality players. The team did not perform due to a coach, who was experimenting, who clearly showed lack of expertise as a coach. Gattusso has not developed into a proper coach. Milan did not deserve to go to UCL. The performances of the team throughout the season were not pleasing to watch. I was disappointed to watch that type of football throughout the season. The team had no identity. The team was no way close to entertaining us it fans. The Milan squad is maybe third best in the league. This team… Read more »
Thank you sir
The blame lies on Gattuso but Leo is no Saint. He is not a easy person to work with and seems to keep causing problems with staff wherever he goes.
Is there a way for us fans to show to the club that how dissatisfied we all are with the shitty work of Gattuso? No tactics at all! Win the world with just grit and anger that’s all. Also, I am really sad that Leodini are leaving. Atleast the transfer plan seemed to be going in the right direction. I’m from India and to watch Milan matches, I have to stay up till 3AM at night and then go to work the next day. Another season of shitty coaches and losses to relegation threatened teams and I swear I’ll forget… Read more »
Couldn’t agree more. Where was the Curva Sud all season? He’s easily the worst coach we’ve ever had and not a peep out of them.
And where were you Dejan? These guys, along the rest of us fans that actually attend matches (and not just bitch around in a blog) are what holds this club together. If you have zero respect to anything that is Milan you might as well support Inter.
The first announcement should have been the resign of Gatusso. Probably he will stay next year because of the compensation they need to pay due to his contract in case of a dismiss. This buy cheap, neverheard of young players for profit wont bring Milan to his glory, yeah, we Need a 2-3 seasons plan, but we also need money to do that, Money from CL. Selling Donna (who i think he is a world class GK but never been a fan) will solve our financial problems and we may afford to buy some young talented players but to succed… Read more »
Every year are we going to start as ‘year zero’? Last year we got Maldini and Leonardo and it was a race against time. Now are we about to make the same mistake? It wouldn’t be wise to change the whole club plus the team. Sell the dead weight, maybe 3 or 4 big players and bring in better ones. We can’t change it up year after year when it all fails. Start something and build on it. After all these years of wanting Maldini he is now either going to resign or get sacked? The guy that wanted to… Read more »
I think Maldini appointment was more of a PR stunt. What was his role exactly at Milan? Personally I don’t know and I cant see him at Milan without Leonardo. So chances are he will leave along with Gattuso. The only disappointing news here is that Campos is not taking the Leonardo’s role full time and that is not good news in my opinion because we will still need to find a good director to replace him. Ajax and Atalanta have both proven that you don’t need mega stars or big name players to build a winning team just quality… Read more »
What is Nedved’s role at Juventus? But he’s still there because his presence means something
Maldini needs to stay and Kaka should also be welcomed aboard. These are immortal figures within the club
Nedved has the pulling power over there. He told Agnelli either him or me(Allegri)
100% but we are not Ajax or Atalanta. We are milan. Teams like that come in cycles and don’t last very long. Why should we go down to their level? Unfortunately that’s what milan in the last 7 years has nothing to show that they are a big club.
I agree Milanellofm; some roles need to be replaced, but doing a complete overhaul is overdoing it. But imo everything needs to depend on our budget and the ffp ruling.
Ancelotti was our last tier 1 coach, how many years have passed?? Stop trying with tier 3 coaches!! Now Conte is at inter, and we are with a big question mark on the bench…
Spend in a good coach, give Mourinho a chance.. how expensive can he be? probably worth anyway..
Sad times to be a Milan fan..
Mourinho would never join a club that is not ready to spend big and neither will any high profile coach. Am sorry we are doomed until our future buyers are serious.This Club is getting worse.
Jesus Christ, after that horror show of a season the Meow of Milan is “reflecting on his future….” JUST DO IT!! By the way, I’m glad to see there are still some people left on this blog who’re able to see the difference between fiction and reality. The Gattuso lovers seem to have gone strangely quiet after accusing us of doing the same all season whenever he somehow managed a win.
Yes I like to see all the people who “thumb downed” me when I said we will not be in top for at the end of the season. Leo leaving is not a bad thing. He wasn’t successful as a coach. He isn’t successful as a director. Maldini is also very inexperienced for such a role. And finally about our dear Rino. I really like to slap him through the exit door. Rino+Leo+Paolo ruined this year for us. I would rather have a young squad with someone like Gasperini or Jardim. Compare to old farts like fabergas who was Leo… Read more »
Yep, what gets me is that the whole appointment of yet another rookie coach in Gattuso and keeping him on all season was down to EMOTION. Just because of “Milan DNA” yadda yadda. If people stopped letting their emotions overrule their common sense we’d all be a lot better off.
Really depressing end of the season. Even though I saw it coming ever since that match against Torino, the first half of our last match naively gave me some glimpse of hope. Only to be shattered 45 minutes later.
We had our best season, point-wise at least, in 5 years, but we just couldn’t make the cut. For me, there are many names on this failure, but I would think twice before doing a complete rehaul. Anyways … depressing.
Baresis dream take it Easy my brother we are not champions league team or even Europe league team right now milan missing management when we got management am sure we will go to champions by force
Ashraf, you are right mate, we are not CL material for sure. But you gotta start somewhere. And with these FFP rules (that create a rich get richer poor get poorer world) we can’t progress with CL revenue.
Di Marzio is already reporting Rino will not be Milan’s coach in the coming season
More to follow
Yep. It’s also reported that Gianpaolo from Sampdoria has been contacted by Gazidis. Interesting. He’s another upcoming Italian coach with huge potential but I never saw this coming if Milan appoint him. Let’s see what happens next.
To be honest I’m quite concerned of how things are going to be with Gianpaolo. We made the same decision in the past with Miha and Montella, and time proved they never became top tier coaches. One characteristic of top tier coaches is they have a strong football philosophy and a certain way of playing. You could see that in the likes of Pep, Mou, Klopp, or Sarri (yes, his first season did not go well, but it was also the case with Klopp).
Does Gianpaolo have such characteristics?
@Niel8….I believe Giampaolo is ready for a big club. He is tactically proficient and his team’s are balanced both in defense and attacking. It’s no surprise Quagliarella is the league top scorer under Giampaolo who prefers to play with 2 strikers.
He is not my first choice pick to replace Gattuso but he is not a bad option either and he would do much better than any of our past coaches in recent times.
Pls i formatted my fone so i am no longer part of that our discord chat. Can someone there help me with d link. Thank u
There is a lot of pressure in Milan and this is why many coaches failed ..Imagine barely few ours of champion league qualification exit, People have started resigning….This is not good at all. For how many years are we going to continue to do this..every year , we start from year zero…If Gasidis is not careful, he will fail woefully because Milan is not Arsenal or Ajax..The problem is that we make short and quick fixes and we set a goal of champions league qualification for the coach and the players..Players that are not Milan type and we expect them… Read more »
For me, Gazidis proving he is a King in ACM, but he having huge salary and did nothing until now.
Let me see…
Well, if Elliott’s and Gazidis want to increase the value of the club, this is good news. Raising value actually means making something concrete like challenging other teams for meaningful titles and playing nice-to-see football. That’s what Ajax did. This is the way to go right now, and I hope it can be good for them and for us.
Arsenal are one of the few financially healthy clubs operating with positjve numbers along with Bayern and Spurs but that doesn’t make them title challengers. At all
They constructed a young but mentally weak squad without any leadership, just like Milan. Here’s your first imprint of Gazidis the Almighty’s work
Ted we are not arsenal the time we build our team like arsenal gud couch quality players milan got DNA for winning
I am 100% with Leo on this. We NEED at least a few Experienced players along with youth. We don’t want to adopt Atalanta Model or Ajax Model. All we need is simply a good world class coach. END OF STORY. What have Gazidis done so far? NOTHING. Literally NOTHING. Leo atleast tried to sign some players. All his signings were good players except higuain. Leo even brought back our capitano, Maldini. But Gattuso ruined the whole team with his Zero Tactical ability. Even Higuain signing had it’s upside as we got Piatek for him. But What has Gazidis done… Read more »
Well said!!!
It seems we wont even be adopting the Arsenal/Ajax youngster model, this will be more like the Monaco model (Gazidis even wants to bring the Monaco menagment), in Monaco they buy very very young players who are still in youth teams and sell them for profit in 3-4 years time. The max age Gazidis wants in the team is 23years old, this wont bring tittles for sure it will bring profit for the owners who said they wont stay more than 5years at the beginning any way. I know some of you will say Monaco won the league once and… Read more »
Gatusso hands in his resignation; giving up his sallary for the next two years. What a champion, what a gentleman. Despite what many fans here (most of which never gave a dime to Milan), the club owes you a lot (in particular, this gesture).
Good luck in the remainder of your career. You will always have a special place in Milan’s history.
this is the biggest shame of milan.giving hope and contracting their own legends.then when they dont fullfill in one year a magic -kick them out like dogs. its so sad. we became a club driven to succes -fear to stand proud. and make a line give the club 1-2 years to fully recover no-every year we put so much pressure on young players who already to a great job-and to coaches who are rookies and we hired them. gattuso did a verry good job if see the points he got. this is why no big manager wants to come to… Read more »
That’s a fair enough statement derya, but Gatusso knew what he was heading into
shure.gattuso,leonardo,seedorf…all of them knew what they are heading into.my point is.milan should have already long ago-stopped this rush of succes and championsleague football.took out 1-2 years.focus just on league and give a project a time to grow. this was the missing strategy .look now.we have not been in champions league for so many year.changed so many coaches-destroyed our image how we deal with honest mans who have been playing and helping to archieve titles for milan.now we have almost no atraction for big coaches.we lost many years and now we are heading into a strange time.elliot gives ghazidis full power-even… Read more »
So u want Elliot to pay the capital increase from their pocket God thanks he cover so many holes already i believe next year we will be healthy
I don’t think anybody has something with the man Gatusso, but with the coach Gatusso.
as a man he was the most honest one.look at his gesture.to give up on 11 mil money.
shure that he will have a great carrier as a coach.sad that milan always playes the right card in the wrong moment.
Official Leonardo leaves milan what a great news
you’re just a broken record
Thank you for everything gattuso! We had some good moments! I thank you for steadying the ship after montellas horror! True class to gk out like that and give away 90% of his salary. Not many would do that. I wish you the best of luck in the future!!
I second that as much I didn’t like his brand of football but he gave the team a fighting spirit to win games from losing positions. Something we didn’t do under Montella, Mihajlovic and Inzaghi. However, it seems pretty unwise to give up 4m net salary which includes the training staff budget over emotional sentimental values for Milan. I can’t wrap my mind around that decision as it seems like poor judgment. Gattuso’s dedication and love for Milan goes without question so he had nothing to prove to the club and fans by making such a decision to walk away… Read more »