Pirlo stays in Milan

Well another transfer saga recently drew to a close and in its conlusion it was decided that Andrea Pirlo will remain at Milan for the remainder of his playing career. The player was very close to linking up with former coach Carlo Ancelotti now at Chelsea, however the deal fell through at the eleventh hour.

A few weeks ago I wrote a column expressing my opinion that letting Andrea Pirlo leave may not be a bad decision. My opinion was that at 30 years of age Pirlo’s best years are behind him and Milan might do well to fill his position in with a quality young talent. Whatever the outcome, I stated that Milan could not lose.

If Milan sold Pirlo, they could get a good price and use it to fund the investment of a young and quality talent, maybe a certain Cesc Fabregas or the Brazilian Hernanes. This would be a good situation as the team is in dire need of young players as there simply are too many old ones at the club. It also has to be admitted that Pirlo is not at the heights he was a couple of seasons ago and at the age of 30 he is entering the twilight years of his career as he physically starts to wind down. Therefore, it is for financial and long term footballing reasons that selling Pirlo might actually do, or have done, Milan some good.

But Andrea Pirlo, when it came to decision time, opted to stay with Milan and from his point of view I think it was a very wise decision on his behalf. Pirlo would not suit the Premier League one bit. He is not physically strong and he is not fast, never has been and certainly never will be. These are two attributes I believe to be critical if a player is to succeed in England or not. A player similar to Pirlo who has tried his luck in England is Deco of Chelsea. Here it has to be said that Deco is not the player he once was at Barcelona and his form so far in the Premier League has been anything but spectacular apart from his magical debut appearance.

So Andrea Pirlo made a very smart decision. And I assume he did think long and hard about it too after witnessing what the Premier League did to his former team mate and friend Andriy Shevchenko.

For Milan, though I believe that he probably should have been sold for the aforementioned reasons, at the same time and given the drama played out this European summer in Milan, it is probably a good thing too that he has stayed albeit moslty for psyhological reasons. For Pirlo is a symbol of Milan and the Milan successes of the noughties just like Kaka, Ancelotti and Maldini were and still are. Having lost Ancelotti, Kaka and Maldini in the space of a few weeks, losing Pirlo might have been a change to much.

The club, in keeping Pirlo, have kept a symbol, an icon of Milan’s most recent successful cycle. This is great for the club psychologically for with all the great losses incurred recently, the morale of the club and players has been – not might of been – but has been greatly undermined. His success for both Milan and Italy will be invaluable as he passes on his wisdom of such experiences on to the players arriving at the club fostering a new sense of hunger amongst the new playing staff.

So, like I said, Milan really cannot lose. But, if Pirlo’s performances do not improve and indeed if they get worse of the next couple of years than I believe the decision to keep him and not sell him for some younger quality talent will have been the wrong one. As Milan do not have other quality players to fill in for Pirlo nor the financial resources to acquire a substitute without the sale of the Italian, Milan will be, for the forseeable future, heavily reliant on Pirlo to continue pulling the strings in the midfield.

If however, Pirlo’s form is stellar over the next years, helping Milan to become more competitive along with other signings like Huntelaar and old stalwarts like Gattuso and Nesta, then the decision to keep him will have paid off. It is this scenario that I hope becomes true.

My fear though, is that the latter scenario is unlikely and that the former is more likely to eventuate. For this, I am not convinced that keeping Pirlo was the right decision for Milan though it definitely is for the player.

Whilst Ronaldinho stays out late

On to other current matters. Ronaldinho is, sadly, up to his old tricks again. Staying out late and partying, displaying exactly the kind of behaviour that has contributed to his decline in recent years.

It was reported that along with Dida, the player stayed out till late at night and was told by fans to go home. For all his phenomenal talent, he just seems to have lost the hunger maybe.

This season is really his make or break season. Another season of indifferent form and his career is practically over. And lets not mention or even contemplate what that will mean for Milan’s season given that Milan will be relying on his talent to bring some success to the club.

I believe that Ronaldinho simply does not have the discipline and professionalism to reach the form, or anything near that, that made him the worlds best player a few years ago.

It is sad to know the talent that this player has in him, but because of a lack of professionalism, he does not bother to display it any longer.

Hopefully Leonardo can get the best out of him and that there is hunger enough within the player for him to turn his fortunes around, otherwise things will not get better for him and they will definitely not get better for Milan this upcoming season at least.