There is sadness but no scandal in Paolo Maldini’s farewell to Milan

With football there is always a problem of balancing logic and feeling. Especially when there are men in the middle, the stories of men who have embodied colors. Because if it’s true that, as the fans say, men pass, colors stay, it’s never entirely like that. This is the case for example of Paul Maldini to the Milandefender, captain, icon of a certain Milanism (perhaps not of all Milanism: we can’t forget the whistles on the last lap of the pitch on 24 May 2009), then guide towards the Rossoneri’s return to success.

Paolo Maldini will not be the director of the technical area next season as he had been since 14 June 2019. There is still no official announcement but relations with the owners are compromised, the end of Maldini’s second act at Milan should be near. Monday’s meeting between Gerry Cardinale, the man who took over the Rossoneri from Elliott’s back, and the manager went badly. What they said to each other, we cannot know, what happened remains in their privacy. The ownership took it upon themselves to decide that a change was needed. Whether it was the right choice, time will tell.

In all this, however, there is no scandal, there is no treason. It can hurt the fans, everything may seem wrong, everything needs to be redone, but cheering is fickle, it doesn’t forget its favorites, yet it always finds a way to rejoice, try new lusts, overcome even the unwanted choices. Because in the end the same rule always applies: men pass, colors remain.

It will certainly be difficult for the Rossoneri to think of a Milan without Paolo Maldini, especially after a Scudetto that arrived after many re-foundations that ended badly, after failures and wasted years. The 2022 Scudetto was also praised as the managerial success of Paolo Maldini and Frederic Massara, capable of bringing young and talented players to Milanello, spending the right – the project started in the 2019-20 season saw 250 million euros leave the company coffers compared to 116 collected -, making mistakes, but it is known that infallibility does not dwell in man, managing to defend the choices made, allowing time even for what seemed to be errors of judgment, but which in hindsight were not.

Errors that also occurred last season, when Paolo Maldini managed to obtain the coveted total management of the technical area. It went badly: whoever was supposed to help the team entrusted to Stefano Pioli didn’t help it, several new signings either disappointed or ended up on the sidelines of the technical project. Mistakes that didn’t prevent the team from reaching the semi-final of the Champions League.

Paolo Maldini as manager, in the same way as Paolo Maldini as a player, was a great show for the AC Milan fan, or at least a very large part of ita pure demonstration of how logic and sentiment could go hand in hand and how the latter, being a Milan fan, could guide the former towards success.

In all of this, however, there is another aspect that belongs to the field of sporting logic and that sentiment instead does not take into consideration. In other words, the fact that it’s not a man who makes the team and that every club, whatever, is also based on compromise. With yourself, especially with others. And this is where the man and professional Paolo Maldini enters the field and his ability to be methodical and coherent to the point of no return, which is intransigence. Paolo Maldini is a person of other times, but these are the times, the teams are no longer the emanation of a single person, of an Italo Allodi or to stay in the Rossoneri of a Gipo Viani. The time of the one man show seems outdated and now football, like it or not, is a matter of team. Especially if the owner is American and the project he has in mind focuses on numbers and bigdata and not on intuition and old ways.