Adriano Galliani describes the moment when something went wrong with Milan to Top Calcio 24.
Galliani, the former vice-president is now the CEO of Silvio Berlusconi’s other club, Monza, in Serie C. He talks of his time in San Siro. In San Siro, he says, the world’s beaters lost their way. “Let’s not beat around the bush, Milan collapsed after the sale of the big stars,” said Galliani, talking about the 2012 departure of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva towards PSG.
“We won the Scudetto in 2010-11 and came close in 2011-12, but lost it towards the end. It’s our own fault, as we wanted to win the Coppa Italia and strained Thiago Silva too much. If we hadn’t played him in the semi-final, it might’ve gone differently.”
He also spoke about his regrets over Carlos Tevez, and why Mino Raiola was generous with Gianluigi Donnarumma.
He said, “Of course, if we’d signed Tevez then we definitely would’ve won the Scudetto in 2012. I was dreaming of a front line with Ibrahimovic and Tevez, but that’s football, it didn’t happen.”
Galliani is a true friend of Agent Raiola and has defended the man who represents the Donnarumma: “I always worked well with Raiola. It’s true, he earned a lot of commission, but always behaved fairly with me. He twice had the opportunity to take Donnarumma away from Milan as a free agent, but he didn’t do it.”
There were two questions Galliani declined to answer: did Marco van Basten send an ultimatum to coach Arrigo Sacchi and are Juventus favored by referees? All he said was, “I plead the fifth.”
