No Longer the Rulers of Italy, What's Happening with AC Milan and Juventus?

As the championship title of the 2024-2025 Serie A is fiercely contested between Napoli and Inter Milan until the final week, the two teams that have long been the "rulers" of Italy, AC Milan and Juventus, can only remain on the sidelines, merely spectators. Milan and Juventus are certain to end this season with little to boast about, almost taking home nothing.

AC Milan may be unbeaten against Inter Milan this season. In the Derbi della Madonnina, AC Milan managed to secure three victories and two draws. One of AC Milan's victories over Inter Milan with a score of 3-2 in the Supercoppa Italiana even resulted in the only title for the "Rossoneri" this season.

However, what does an unbeaten record mean if there is a gap separating AC Milan and Inter Milan at the end of the road? Inter Milan may not be able to defeat AC Milan, but they are capable of competing for the Serie A title.

Although Inter completely failed in the domestic arena after being outperformed by Napoli, who emerged as champions, they competed until the very end. In fact, the "Nerazzurri" still have hopes of lifting a trophy by challenging Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final.

AC Milan and Juventus? They have already been eliminated earlier. Milan will certainly not experience the competition of the Champions League next season. Meanwhile, Juventus still needs to fight for the last ticket to that event.

Milan has fallen to ninth place in the Serie A standings with 60 points. The squad coached by Sergio Conceicao is seven positions and 21 points behind the team that shares the stadium with them. Even if they win their last match against Moza, that gap will not be reduced and will have no impact on Milan's fate.

The 1-3 defeat to AS Roma last week not only ended Milan's unbeaten streak against that opponent since October 2019. The result also prevented Mike Maignan and his teammates from breaking into the top six positions in the standings. This means they will not participate in European competitions next season.

Let alone the Champions League or the Europa League, a ticket to next season's Europa Conference League is beyond Milan's reach. The Italian club, which holds the record for the most Champions League titles (7), failed to qualify through the standings in Serie A, which offers tickets to the Champions League for the top four teams.

They were also unable to secure a ticket to the Europa League for the fifth place and a ticket to the Europa Conference League for the sixth place. The 0-1 defeat to Bologna in the final match also caused them to miss out on a ticket to the Europa League through the Coppa Italia champion route.

This failure almost certainly marks the end of Sergio Conceicao's tenure. Milan seems to be at a low point, having only won three major Italian league titles this century (the 2003-2004, 2010-2011, and 2021-2022 seasons).

For Milan, which is the third most successful team in league title achievements (19 trophies), this failure is a severe blow and an embarrassment. This failure also indicates that several issues remain unresolved over the past few seasons.

From a financial perspective, Milan has indeed been in a less stable condition since Li Yonghong purchased the club from Silvio Berlusconi in 2017. Although Elliott Advisors (now Elliott Investment Management) subsequently took over and made a significant investment, they also sold the club to RedBird Capital Partners in 2022.

This indicates that in practice, there is not much money available for transfer funds. Therefore, the acquisition of players like Alvaro Morata, who is already 32 years old (six goals in 25 matches) and subsequently loaned to Galatasaray, has become a common occurrence within six months.

Failure to qualify for next season's European competition will also disrupt Milan's finances. Quoted from Calcio e Finanza, Milan will lose a source of income of at least 80 million euros as achieved this season from their appearance in the Champions League. From the Europa League and the Europa Conference League, Milan will also not have the opportunity to get approximately 20 million to 35 million euros.

Beyond financial issues, another crisis is also affecting Milan in many aspects. The decision to remove their living legend, Paolo Maldini, from his position as technical director may be one tangible manifestation of this. This dismissal implies that Milan has lost its identity.

Managerially, at least coach Stefano Pioli was able to secure a title during his five-year tenure. Pioli's replacement, Paulo Fonseca, was initially seen as a sort of savior. However, Fonseca was ultimately dismissed after six months.

When Fonseca was dismissed at the end of last year, Milan was in eighth place, eight points below the Champions League position. Currently, Milan is in ninth place and has no hope of qualifying for that event.

However, legendary Milan coach Arrigo Sacchi believes that Conceicao is the one who can least be blamed for the club's decline. This is because Conceicao arrived and worked amidst the total chaos that already existed within Milan.

According to Sacchi, there are actually many mistakes made by Milan that have caused them to be at their lowest point this season. One of them is that Milan is moving without a vision. "They are moving blindly, and by doing so, they will surely hit a wall," Sacchi was quoted as saying by Football Italia.

On the other hand, the players were also unable to demonstrate solidarity. Sacchi's opinion makes sense when considering that players who were supposed to make a difference, such as Joao Felix, have even failed to meet expectations. Two goals in 20 matches indicate that the player from Portugal will never be the answer.

Santiago Gimenez has not yet truly made the impact that everyone expected following his transfer from Feyenoord. Meanwhile, Theo Hernandez is starting to become somewhat of a burden on the left side.

According to Sacchi, this indicates further issues in player selection during the summer transfer window. He expressed doubts about the recruitment process.

"Milan has a group of players who were recruited randomly. I do not even question their individual technical quality, although I could, but the real issue is that they are not the type of players who can form a cohesive team," said Sacchi.

Milan is beginning to lose the trust of its supporters. The Milan Ultras have announced that they will leave San Siro after the first 15 minutes of the match against Monza to protest against the club's owner Gerry Cardinale, the directors, and the players.

"Then we will abandon them, leaving them alone with their shame," the Milan Ultras statement read.

Compared to Milan, the condition of Juventus can be considered better. Although they have been eliminated from the Champions League and have completely failed in domestic competitions, they still have a chance to qualify for the top-tier European competition next season. Juventus, currently in fourth place in the standings, must fight in the final match against Venezia for the remaining slot in the Champions League.

Juventus is competing with Roma and Lazio, who also have the opportunity to qualify for the Champions League. There are 27 possible match outcomes in the final week of Serie A, with 17 of them resulting in Juventus claiming the fourth position.

However, the team coached by Igor Tudor has not yet fully emerged from the crisis. In their last 10 matches, for instance, they have only achieved four victories and suffered three defeats.

The arrival of Tudor to replace Thiago Motta, who was dismissed after a series of poor results, has not resolved several fundamental issues, such as ineffective attacking and poor defense.

Only one trophy has been secured by the club with the most Serie A titles (36) in the last four years. The only remaining opportunity to avoid returning empty-handed this season is the 2025 Club World Cup in July.

However, the journeys of Juventus and Milan this season have been sufficient to demonstrate that there are many aspects they need to improve in order to return to the top of domestic and European football. Progressive steps need to be taken because it is not only Roma that was not built in a day.