Antonio Conte Will Replace Stefano Pioli As AC Milan Manager

Pelatih Antonio Conte (X/@SpursOfficial).

JAKARTA - AC Milan is determined to make changes to coaches even though Stefano Pioli's performance is not bad. Milan almost certainly appointed Antonio Conte to replace Pioli.

Milan previously pocketed a number of names who were candidates as Pioli successions. Among them were Thiago Motta who succeeded in building Bologna or Roberto De Zerbi who migrated to the Premier League by dealing with Brighton and Hove Albion.

However, Thiago Motta still seems to feel at home in Bologna. He is considered to have taken a high risk if he leaves I Rossoblu to deal with Milan.

Meanwhile, De Zerbi may have turned down an offer to return to Italy to coach the Rossoneri. Brighton will certainly not release De Zerbi. In addition, De Zerbi is still Real Madrid's target to replace coach Carlo Ancelotti.

The final choice fell to Conte, who once succeeded in coaching Juventus and Inter Milan. Conte is also the owner of the club, Gerry Cardinale.

In fact, the club had planned to change coaches before Christmas. Especially after Milan failed in the 2023/2024 Champions League and only competed in the 2023/2024 Europa League after being ranked third in the group stage.

The previous season, Milan were able to reach the semifinals before being eliminated by Inter in the Derby della Madonnina.

Not only that, Milan is considered to have difficulty pursuing Inter in the 2023/2024 Serie A competition. It doesn't matter if Inter have a squad depth that is better than Milan.

With the different team quality, Milan did have to work extra hard to compete with I Nerazzurri. However, the plan to change coaches before the end of the year is canceled. The reason is, Pioli shows good performance in domestic and Coppa Italia competitions.

Since beating Newcastle United 2-1 at St James' Park who qualified Milan for the 2023/2024 Europa League, they have never lost in various competitions.

Including eliminating Cagliari with a landslide score of 4-1 which brought Rafael Leao et al. to qualify for the Coppa Italia quarter-finals.

In addition, Milan learned from Napoli who wanted to bring Conte to replace Rudi Garcia.

However, Conte refused the offer because he did not want to replace the coach in the middle of the competition. So, a change of coach is still being made. However, Milan is likely to do so after the league ends.

The problem is, Milan must be prepared for a bigger expenditure because Conte's salary demand is much higher than Pioli received. The former Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur manager also needed a lot of funding when building the squad.

This is what makes Conte inconsistent with Juve and Inter so that he decides to resign. The reason is, Conte offered large funds to overhaul the squad so that they could compete in Europe.

As he once said, "They can't eat in a four-star restaurant if they don't have a thick wallet in their pocket."

This means that clubs must be prepared with expensive squads to compete in Europe. Meanwhile, Milan is never again a jorjoran in recruiting players. In fact, Pioli received limited funds if he wanted to buy players.

However, with limited funds, Pioli was able to bring Milan to the top of the league and stay in the Coppa Italia and Europa League.