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The season, meanwhile, had started with Daniele Bonera on the bench, in his first experience as head coach. But even here the company line on how to develop the players' growth project is not clear. So much so that over the months, Bonera saw Torriani, Bartesaghi, Zeroli, Jimenez and Camarda taken away from the first team (mainly to make up the numbers) while Liberali did not find a fixed position, being tossed around between the first team, Milan Futuro and Primavera. This constant coming and going led the players to find neither continuity of employment in Milan Futuro nor chances of quality in the first team, moving from one locker room to another from morning to afternoon. There are many examples of players on the bench on Saturday night in the first team and then forced to travel at night to play 5-600 km away, arriving more tired than lucid. Result? There has been no real growth except for Jimenez, too good for Serie C and one to have made the leap to the first team with important minutes played. Zeroli, in January, was sent on loan to Monza where Camarda should have also gone, then kept at Milan by Ibrahimovic. All this continuous whirlwind has created confusion within Milan Futuro, with the results on the field that have been scarce and, in the long run, also the impossibility of being able to make your top talents make the appearances necessary for the post season. It is no coincidence that, especially Camarda, were unable to play in the play outs for salvation. Without forgetting the timing of the change on the bench, with Bonera perhaps remaining all limits and the casting between Bollini, the promotion of Guidi from the Primavera (Vergine did not agree) and then the arrival of Massimo Oddo, who did the most with what he had inherited, from all points of view.Milannews wrote a long article about Futuro and they say
Originally, the project for the second Milan team had been assigned to Antonio D’Ottavio as sporting director, who would have detached himself from the operations alongside Furlani and Moncada to dedicate himself 100% to the creation of Milan Futuro. The choice of coach had already been made and had fallen on Ignazio Abate, who had done so well with the Primavera, taking them to the Final Four of the UEFA Youth League twice, exiting in the semi-final in their first year while, in the 2023-24 season, they became European vice-champion, beaten in the final by Olympiacos. But Abate’s profile was perfect because he knew the Primavera group well, which would then be promoted to the Milan Futuro squad, and the players would have started from important certainties in terms of daily work. Instead, the arrival of Zlatan Ibrahimovic on the Milan Futuro project shuffles the cards. Abate was fired because he was guilty of not giving space in the Primavera to Zlatan's eldest son, Maximilian, and after his dismissal, that of his father Beniamino will also come, who in the meantime had become the goalkeeping coach of the women's first team.
But in addition to those with Abate, Ibrahimovic had a series of clashes with D’Ottavio on various issues relating to the creation and management of Milan Futuro and this difference of opinion will be the beginning of an increasingly difficult relationship between the two, with D’Ottavio unable to go to Milanello and to Milan Futuro matches and relegated to a purely office job. In this scenario, the figure of Jovan Kirovski emerges, Ibrahimovic’s trusted man, who is put in charge of the Milan Futuro project, but without any experience in Italian football and in a category as difficult as Serie C. It will be Kirovski who convinces Ibrahimovic, during the latter’s November trip to New York as a Cardinal with Furlani and Moncada to push for the removal of D’Ottavio, who will be formally dismissed. In doing so, the team found itself without an important point of reference, given that Kirovski never gained a foothold in the team group (there were rare occasions when he followed MF away from home).
And we come to the other sore point, namely the costs sustained by Milan to reach sporting disaster. The start-up of Milan Futuro, among everything, cost 12 million euros, which then became over 15 in the January market. Impressive costs for a Serie C if you consider that with that money there are those who make more than important Serie B championships the disaster is even more unbelievable