Despite a great record in recent years against Hellas Verona, Milan fans have a long history with the club and the stadium and bad luck. Milan coming into this match with back-to-back losses is not helpful, either, particularly when you consider the disconnect from reality in both the Napoli loss and last week's loss to Udinese at home. For me, though, besides the overall disgrace of a management, the third consecutive Year Zero this past summer after a chaotic season last year, and all of the insane referee issues this season, the banning of our away fans once again is actually the worst part of this one. It's not even political matchfixing anymore, it's just treachery.
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| Are our players going to Verona having already been sold out by the powers that be? |
Verona come into this match in the relegation zone, having only own three matches all season, and having lost their last four consecutive matches. But as we know all too well, that is the most dangerous kind of match for Allegri's Milan. Verona's most recent match was a 2-1 loss away to Torino last week. For that match, manager Paolo Sammarco lined up a 3-5-2 with: Montipò, Nellsson, Edmundsson, Frese; Oyegoke, Akpa Akpro, Gagliardini, Bernède, Belghali; Harroui, and Bowie. He is only missing Serdar to injury.
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| Sammarco's side has everything to gain and nothing to lose. The most dangerous kind of team. |
Miraculously, Allegri has no players injured again this week. Allegri is definitely returning to his football-blind and deaf 3-5-2 with Pulisic and Leão likely to start again up front, not even giving a chance for Santi Gimenez to prove his worth. Gabbia is reported to return to the starting lineup, and there are rumors that Athekame may start ahead of Saelemaekers. However, we now have five players in danger of suspension, and we can ill afford to have anyone suspended next week vs. Juventus, either, as the race for top four tightens.
But once again, Milan fans from the Lombardy region have been banned, this time by the Verona prefect. And to make matters worse, the Milan Clubs (not the Curva Sud) appealed the ban, and TAR upheld the travel ban. I genuinely do not know what is going on, because I have heard zero reports of any issues with fans. But there are a LOT of people who have been trying to keep Milan from succeeding, and given Milan's political impotence, this kind of political matchfixing – giving these home teams the advantage of almost a 100% home fanbase, is getting old.
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| Moise Kean threatened to kill someone this week, but Leão is still the worst person ever, according to Italian media. |
Even if Milan won this home fixture handily in December, Milan are battling all their ghosts – the AIA/referees, their own management/club, and most notably, themselves. But now, political powers that be are taking away the one asset and constant that they have had access to: our fans. I'm not sure if it is because Milan fans pushed for uniformity in away ticket prices, or if it has something to do with the witch hunt investigation of the Curva Sud, but it is the last thing this team needs in their already fragile mentality. In Allegri's Press Conference on Saturday, he was unusually agitated. And given how many forces have been working directly against Milan, all of it feels like not even just an omen, but like Milan are walking into a trap, or worse, some kind of treachery.
This post inspired by the music of Bella Poarch's "Don't Fear the Reaper"
Reviewed by Elaine
on
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