Sunday night, Milan host the currently 17th placed Lecce at the San Siro. And if you've been paying attention at all this season, that means we will struggle and drop points. Because that is how Allegri rolls. He will make too many changes, especially since he does not always sub well during the matches and we have had this crazy run of playing so many matches so close together. It's like we are being held hostage. And Lecce will obviously play their best game of the season against us, even if we have already faced them twice and won both matches. But this one has another element, as the two teams are negotiating over Camarda, who has a shoulder injury. Milan claim it is serious and could require surgery to heal properly, while Lecce officially claim he only needs rest. Milan have asked to end his loan early, while Lecce want to keep him. So this is not just a football match, but a hostage situation.
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| Will Camarda's future be held hostage by people more interested in money than his development? |
Of course, the mismanagement of Camarda has been going on ever since Zlatan Ibrahimović was given carte blanche to oversee Milan Futuro and hired his buddy, Jovan Kirovski from the LA Galaxy in the U.S. That resulted not only in the entire U23 team being relegated to Serie D this past season, but also, Camarda actually got less playing time than most of his teammates. He spent a lot of time riding the bench for the first team amidst that chaos, not playing, and the rest of his time playing for a Futuro team that had a manager who was so bad, he got the most valuable team in Serie C relegated.
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| Camarda making history in all the right ways, Milan failing him in all the wrong ways. |
Fast forward to this season, Ibrahimović over-corrected by sending Camarda on loan to Lecce, basically paying them to develop our player. While the notion that we were paying them bonuses for his appearances and goals has been widely reported and also widely refuted, the bottom line was that at the end of the season, they could exercise their buyout option, and Milan would exercise their buyback option, essentially paying them for having developed him this season. So one way or the other, Lecce do not want to miss out on their cash, and also probably do not have the means to replace him at this point. While Milan are very concerned about the health and well being of their young star.
At Lecce, Camarda has started seven of 18 matches he was available, and played 634 minutes in Serie A. Which may not sound like much, but is a lot for a 17 year-old. He managed to score his first Serie A goal and create one assist for Lecce, but more notably scored four goals for Italy's U21 side this season. Things seemed to be going well until this injury. Lecce claim it is a contusion, while he is actually having exams in Milano this weekend to better determine the extent of the injury. Milan believes it is an injury that will require surgery to heal properly, and would rather him have that now and recover rather than wait until the summer when he is returned to us. Both parties are then reportedly set to negotiate regarding his future ahead of this match. Given that Milan have completely mismanaged Camarda's best interests this past two seasons, whatever they decide in this custody battle-turned hostage situation will probably tragically end up being the worst for him.
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| Will a relegation-threatened side hold a player like Rabiot hostage? |
Aside from the future of one of the best players Milan has had in decades being at risk, the football part is also doubtful. We won vs. Lecce at the Via del Mare in August in Allegri's second match of the season, but it was a brutal win. In September in the Coppa Italia, however, at the San Siro, Milan dominated them, but, of course Landucci was actually on the sidelines, and our team was much different then. For example, that is the match where Santi Gimenez scored his only goal (that counted) this season. Also, Lecce have also evolved as a team and look quite different now as well.
Now, Di Francesco's side come into this match having only won four matches, drawing five, and losing 11 this season. Their most recent match was a 1-0 loss to Inter on Wednesday. For that match, Di Francesco lined up a 4-2-3-1 with Falcone; Veiga, Siebert, Tiago Gabriel, Gallo; Coulibaly, Maleh; Pierotti, Gandelman, our former loanee Sottil; and Stulić. For our match, he will be without Gaspar, who is in the middle of a three match ban after kicking a player and then sarcastically applauding the referee; as well as Veiga, who is suspended due to card accumulation. Obviously, our Camarda will not play, and he is also missing Berisha to injury.
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| Nkunku scored his first Milan goal vs. Lecce, can he do it again? |
There will be a minute of silence at the beginning of this match, as we pay our respect to Fiorentina's Rocco Commisso, who passed away on Saturday. As for Milan, Allegri is still trying to keep all of the plates spinning that are the fitness statuses of our small and beleaguered team. Santi Gimenez is still out, and Pavlović returned to training with the team on Friday after his injury from Thursday's match away to Como, so at best will likely start on the bench. Leão still has his adductor injury, I assume Pulisic still has his niggling issues. Füllkrug not only has a broken toe, but was apparently robbed at his hotel this week, which is a psychological injury, no matter how tough you may seem. The lack of players at 100% is so great, Allegri could not even list them all in his Press Conference.
But that's okay. We've seen this one before. Over and over and over again, actually, all season long. Lower table side, Allegri rotates too much, the players drop their mentality, the other team plays the game of their lives. Rinse, repeat. What would be thrilling would be if for once, we did not do that. And, of course, there is the future of a brilliant young striker at stake, with the negotiations for the second half of Camarda's season on the table. All of this seems less like a competitive football match, less of a contract negotiation, and more of a hostage situation.
This post inspired by the music of Billie Eilish's "Hostage"