Fabio Capello sees one danger for Milan in their way to retain the Serie A title and hopes the Rossoneri avoid Liverpool in the Champions League group stage draw.
Stefano Pioli’s men began the season with a 4-2 win over Udinese last weekend and have strengthened the team this summer by signing Divock Origi and Charles De Ketelaere. They are still looking for a new centre-back and a central midfielder.
“Milan are working to strengthen the team, but it will be an open race with Juventus, Inter, Napoli and Roma. Five teams who have what it takes to go all the way through, with coaches who have already won,” Capello told La Gazzetta dello Sport.
The ex-Rossoneri player and coach sees Milan among the favourite, but warns the Rossoneri and their coach.
“The danger is in the head, especially when you coach players who are not accustomed to winning continuously. When one wins thinks that everything has been done, but at a club like Milan, to win means fulfilling your duty.
“They must forget about the memories and start from scratch, thinking about the present.”
What will change for Milan this term?
“The opponents’ perception changes when they see a team with the Scudetto in the chest,” noted Capello.
“Before they thought they could win, now they want to do it. There is one thing that worries me about Milan.
“When I coached the Rossoneri, sometimes I wasn’t happy with the intensity I had seen in training and my mission the following day was to bring back the attention to an appropriate level. Pioli must note every detail, every small alarm bell and correct it.
“Milan were the best club in the world because everyone thought about winning. It’s a concept that Pioli transmitted to his players last season.”
One of the campaign’s targets for the Rossoneri will be to qualify for the Champions League Round of 16. They played in Europe’s elite competition for the first time in eight years last season but were eliminated in the group stage.
This time, they will be in pot 1, the ‘pot of champions’ while one year ago, they were in pot 3 and were drawn with Liverpool, Porto and Atletico Madrid.
Capello believes Jurgen Klopp’s Reds are still the team to avoid.
“There are five teams to avoid in the Champions League draw: City, Liverpool, Real, PSG and Bayern,” said Capello. “But except Liverpool, the others are in the same pot as Milan.”
Given they are top seeds, Milan may actually get a manageable group.
There are some tough teams in Pot 2, but after that they’re all much the same.
The draw will probably be much worse for the other 3 Serie A sides.
Shameful to say I hope all the teams go out of Europe because of the lack of young italians in there teams