Milan is facing one of the deepest crisis since Silvio Berlusconi bought the club in 1986. The Rossoneri currently sit in 11th place of the Serie A table, 20 points away from the Champions League qualification zone and 10 from the Europa League zone. The incredible defeat against the newly-promoted Sassuolo was fatal for the coach Massimiliano Allegri, who was sacked a few hours later the debacle.

A decisive contribution for his dismissal came from Silvio's daughter – Barbara – who is going to dethrone the CEO Adriano Galliani, as we already explained on SerieAddicted.com. 


Coach Massimiliano Allegri won the title in 2011 with an immensely richer team (he could count on guys like Zlatan Ibrahimović, Thiago Silva, Alessandro Nesta, Clarence Seedorf and Filippo Inzaghi), but the golden age is over, and the only top-player who still wears the black-and-red jersey is Mario Balotelli.

For a bitter twist of fate, it could be one of Allegri's ex players to substitute him as the new coach of il Diavolo.

We picked five football men who could sit on the Milan's bench soon.


1 - Marco Van Basten. Among those who played during Milan's golden age of the '90s, the 49-year-old Dutchman is the number one. After retiring due to an ankle injury in 1995 after having won three Ballon d'Or (1988, 1989, 1992), Van Basten started his managing career with Ajax B as an assistant of his former teammate John van't Schip, in 2004 Van Basten was named the new manager of the Dutch national team, he showed strong leading skills dropping players with big names such as Clarence Seedorf, Patrick Kluivert and Edgar Davids. After Euro 2008, when his team was eliminated in the quarter finals, he signed again for Ajax but this time for the first team, but he resigned in 2009 after having failed to qualify for the Champions League.

 

Currently, the “Swan of Utrecht” is the coach of Heerenveen since February 2012, his leading skills,his charisma and his tactical ideas make him one of the best candidates. He could give Milan the personality he gave inside and outside the pitch during the Invincibili era.

2 – The second candidate is Filippo "Pippo" Inzaghi. At 40, Inzaghi is a Serie A veteran: he played for seven teams including Milan, Juventus, Parma and the national team. He is the second all times top scorer of all European club competitions and he is still the Italian top scorer in Champions League with 50 goals. He retired in July 2012 and started his coaching career with the Milan under 19 team. Inzaghi doesn't have the coaching experience that Van Basten has, but he is an idol for Milan fans. There's another factor that must be taken into consideration: he is considered Allegri's worst enemy. In the last season, the two men insulted each other at Milanello and they almost came to punches. Inzaghi's shadow stretches on Allegri's back.

3 – Mauro Tassotti is Milan's coach assistant since 2001. He worked with Carlo Ancelotti, then Leonardo and now Massimiliano Allegri. He is well-known by Milan fans: he was the right back of the legendary 90s' team. He witnessed successes and failures and, although his name is not as big as Van Basten and Inzaghi, he could be the most logical short-term choice. No one knows the team and the dressing room mood like him at Milanello.

4 – Roberto Di Matteo. The Italian coach, who won the Champions League with Chelsea in 2012, is currently unemployed. He's young and he knows Italian football. Di Matteo played for Lazio from 1993 to 1996 and was an Italian international with 34 caps. He might be the right choice if the club were to start a new project, based on ideas more than on millions of Euros.

5 – Clarence Seedorf is currently the main candidate to succeed Massimiliano Allegri. The Dutchman is Silvio Berlusconi's favorite but Adriano Galliani (whose power has hugely decreased in the past weeks) has always preferred other options. He's still playing football for the Brazilian Botafogo. He lacks coaching chops but he has a lot of experience as a footballer: in 2007 he was the best midfielder of the Champions League and he was the first player to win the main European competition with three different teams: Ajax, Real Madrid and Milan (twice).

He spent ten years in Rossonero, so he knows each single detail about Milanello's world. As Filippo Inzaghi, Clarence Seedorf has a very bad relationship with Allegri. “It was his fault if I left Milan. I needed to play regularly, but he put me in the bench four games out of five. It was a shame” Seedorf said in October 2013.

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