It wasn’t supposed to be like that; seeing Geoffrey Kondogbia posing in Milan, holding the striped Nerazzurri shirt aloft and giving interviews describing his transfer as a dream move was entirely unexpected.
Another masterstroke had brought a Champions League star to the city despite a lack of opportunity in that competition next season.
This time, though, it wasn’t Adriano Galliani and AC Milan celebrating their new arrival — a successor to Kaka, Shevchenko and Van Basten; Kondogbia had signed for bitter rivals Inter.
A little over a week ago, the Rossoneri looked set for an exciting and productive summer. Despite their poor Serie A showing last time out, Silvio Berlusconi had secured a deal to bring €500m into the club in the form of investment from Thai tycoon Bee Taechaubol.
That money looked earmarked for transfers, with Portuguese striker Jackson Martinez and Monaco engine-room midfielder Kondogbia virtually delivered to Milanello before new coach Sinisa Mihajlovic had even been installed.
To have two such high-profile players in their sights is not unusual for Milan. The club has enjoyed blue riband success with transfers, often bringing in top quality players for bargain prices. Kaka joined the club for €8.5 million. Marco Van Basten, in the first summer of Berlusconi’s reign, cost a little under €3m of today’s money.
Galliani no longer looks able to work that level of magic; though it is unclear whether that is symptomatic of his powers waning or simply the purse strings being tightened by the previous hierarchy at Milan. It is undeniable that, even when the boat has been pushed out recently, such as with the signing of Mario Balotelli, it has just as quickly been brought back to shore.
This summer represents an opportunity for Milan to prove themselves big players in Europe again. Neither Martinez nor Kondogbia are at the very top level of the game – for all their bullishness, the Rossoneri would not be able to take on a club like Paris Saint-Germain or Chelsea in a bidding war.To find then, that even with their targets adjusted for their lowly position, they were unable to secure a signing could only be a rude awakening.
Losing out to Inter, particularly, must be painful to swallow.
A once proud transfer task force looks to be rendered impotent at the current time and, while Kondogbia chose another path, the door was closed on Martinez, seemingly to prevent him doing the same.
It has been apparent for some time that the Rossoneri are not the same club as once they were. Serie A positions have been steadily declining and, for all the players that have come through the door, the bigger names have only come to the club either when their previous club found their role untenable or their careers were on a downswing.
Last summer, Adil Rami joined after he was virtually sacked by Valencia. Diego Lopez only left Real Madrid because of a diplomatic incident bubbling around himself and Iker Casillas. Jeremy Menez arrived on a free. None of them bad players, but equally, none at the peak of their powers.
This time around, there is a transfer kitty standing at around €80m. Both Martinez and Kondogbia would have been exciting deals and both would have taken up around half that figure each.
That Galliani’s dealings have been so public this summer is the real change to proceedings; for the time being, it has made him look a little silly. Everybody knows which players Milan wanted, and everybody knows how much they wanted to pay.
Most painfully, they also know that in neither case were they able to complete the transaction. Yet it is still only June. There are two months and more for Galliani to get right what he has got wrong, two months and more to sign a player that makes everyone forget Jackson Martinez was even on the radar.
It would be disrespectful and naive to write off Galliani and Milan at this stage. Too often in the past have they got it right to project a few mistakes into a terminal decline. To even contemplate writing off a summer because two targets have slipped by is narrow-sighted in the extreme.
There may be a few weeks to come of bearing the brunt of Inter’s barbs over Kondogbia, but there is still time for the young Frenchman to be outshone.
Milan’s new-look, both off the pitch and on it, can only begin to be judged after Sinisa Mihajlovic’s squad has taken shape. For now, everything else is just smoke and mirrors.
Eeeek a mouse!, Marco.
Please filter your next article through a copy editor. No excuse, filing for an impossibly tight deadline or otherwise, would justify such poor writing.