REVEALED: Galliani's sly federation play to reel in Conte, Miha on last legs at Milan
Current coach Sinisa Mihajlovic can get in the way in two ways: either by winning and puling off a convincing performance against FIorentina, or by getting himself sacked imediately... hence forcing Milan's hand to bring someone in immediately, that someone being Marcello Lippi.
This owes a lot to a clever play from CEO Adriano Galliani in Friday's League summit. Furious at many Serie A teams' filibustering of his February camp, Italy manager Antonio Conte was looking for support... which Galliani gave him.
Not that it cost him anything, anyway: the Rossoneri aren't participating in any European cups, and the five teams who are... vetoed the camp anyway. In supporting Conte however, Milan's architect came away looking good, and could go up to Conte and tell him he tried his best.
It's not as if Galliani is favourable to the camp himself, otherwise he would have done more to see that they won everyone's approval. Also, the Coppa Italia issue weighed heavily on Conte's mind. With Milan very likely to plain in the final, Galliani could have done his best to move it forward, so as to not hold it after the end of the Serie A season.
So why didn't he? Because, ironically, delaying it would drive another wedge between Antonio Conte and the FIGC, thus pushing the former Juventus manager towards leaving La Nazionale after this summer's European Championships.
A clever, subtle move. Will it succeed?
Sandro Sabatini (Mediaset – Premium Sport)
Twitter: @Sabatini - Facebook: SandroSabatiniOfficial
translated by Edo Dalmonte (@edodalmonte)
