Italian Soccer Icon Slams Terrible AC Milan and Massimiliano Allegri After Shocking Opening Day Defeat

Italian soccer icon, Fabio Capello, has directed a scathing rant towards AC Milan and Massimiliano Allegri after their opening day defeat to Cremonese.

What Did Fabio Capello Say About AC Milan?

AC Milan got off to a disappointing start in their opening Serie A encounter, as the Rossoneri were beaten 2-1 by newly-promoted Cremonese at the San Siro.

The visitors took the lead after 28 minutes through summer signing, Federico Baschriotto, before Strahinja Pavlovic found an equalizer for Allegri’s side.

Milan struggled to breakthrough Cremonese’s defense and were left stunned as Federico Bonazzoli scored an acrobatic scissor-kick to clinch all three-points for Davide Nicola’s side.

Following the result, a host of criticism has been directed towards Milan and their clear reliance on Rafael Leao, who missed the league opener through injury.

One man that was extremely disappointed with the Rossoneri’s performance was former manager, Fabio Capello, who did not hold back in his post-match analysis.

Capello said: “At a certain point, watching the game, I said to my wife: ‘This is last year’s team’. All the problems that were there last season emerged: slow pace, poor positioning when losing the ball, and, most importantly, a lack of character.

“Take Gimenez, he seems to struggle at San Siro. And then we’re back to the usual story: playing for AC Milan in that stadium isn’t like playing anywhere else.

“When Milan lose the ball, they’re always off-balance, and their opponents can exploit space and timing, because they start again with four or five completely free men.

“Loftus-Cheek, for example, struggles to get back, and Fofana pushes forward a lot: there were already signs of this against Bari in the Coppa Italia.”

What Did Capello Say About Allegri?

Fabio Capello managed AC Milan on two separate occasions during his career, taking the reins between 1991-1996 and then again from 1997-98, after a brief spell as Real Madrid boss in 1996/97.

During his time with the Rossoneri, Capello won four Serie A titles, three Supercoppa Italiana trophies, UEFA Supercup and Champions League – being remembered as one of the clubs’ greatest managers.

Now, another Italian veteran has been tasked with the job and Massimiliano Allegri’s primary objective is to get AC Milan back into the Champions League.

The Rossoneri have added Luka Modric, Samuele Ricci, Pervis Estupinan, Ardon Jashari and Koni de Winter to their ranks this summer and are looking to add more names before August 31st.

Milan are one of the three Italian sides that are interested in Adrien Rabiot after his fall-out in Marseille and the Rossoneri may need some extra quality after their performance against Cremonese.

Capello gave his thoughts on how Milan will need to change and believes Massimiliano Allegri has to fix a lot of things if he wants to be successful this season.

Capello said: “I’m sure Max will work on it, because tactically it’s the first obvious flaw. Then there are the individual flaws: at Milan, you don’t mark by ‘feeling’ the attacker, you just look at the ball.

“Allegri will have to fix a lot of things, but the players need to be willing. Every now and then, on Saturday night, I saw someone come back ‘running’, without the right amount of malice.

“To give a counter-example, at Napoli, all eleven players, if they lose the ball, put themselves in a position to recover it or at least get back into position quickly.

“We didn’t see this at Milan last year, and we didn’t see it against Cremonese either.”