Bleak picture for Leonardo

Ian Hawkey, Italian Football Correspondent

• Last Updated: October 17. 2009 8:58PM UAE / October 17. 2009 4:58PM GMT

Not for the first time, Francesco Totti’s knee is troubling him. Roma’s captain, in the news over the past few days after he expressed an interest in reversing his decision to retire from international football and revealed details of his difficult relationships with his club’s last manager, is a doubtful participant in tonight’s showdown at San Siro.

Milan, the hosts, will tentatively breath a sigh of relief. Totti is precisely the sort of executioner that can turn a trough of form into a crisis. Several loom ahead of Milan in the next four days.

After Roma, somewhat resurgent in Serie A since Claudio Ranieri replaced Luciano Spalletti as head coach, come Real Madrid in the Champions League, with Kaka, Karim Benzema, Raul and company. The small blessing is that Cristiano Ronaldo is injured for the Bernabeu match.

Roma tonight and Real on Wednesday are crux fixtures for Leonardo, the Milan coach whose future was already in jeopardy ahead of the 1-1 draw at Atalanta a fortnight ago, and whose time over the international break has been spent reassessing the plans he has made with the team over his first three months as a senior coach.

Milan are stuck in mid-table in Serie A, have won a mere three league matches and have already lost at home to FC Zurich in Europe.

“This Milan team have a mountain of problems,” said Arrigo Sacchi, the coach who took the rossoneri to two European Cups nearly 20 years ago, yesterday, “and there’s a pressure on everyone, from the directors to the fans. It could still get worse before it gets better.”

Sacchi’s analysis is one of many Leonardo has been obliged to hear lately, and, like most of them, they are not personal. The Brazilian assumed a squad showing clear signs of long-term neglect, that had just sold their best player, Kaka, and lost their senior guide, Paolo Maldini, to retirement.

“The club didn’t know to rejuvenate, after they won their last Champions League in 2007,” said Sacchi, “They should have moved in a new direction and they did not. They ought to have invested in new players but they went for low-cost options. Carlo Ancelotti had done a fantastic job there as coach, but I warned him at the time, ‘If the club carry on like this, they will be ruined’. They spent their money on players like Ronaldo, Emerson, Ronaldinho, and Vieri. None of them contributed much on the field.”

Into the same bracket he did not put David Beckham, whose return to Milan, for another five-month stint in January is now all but confirmed. Beckham may contribute positively to the side, but his arrival is a short-term measure, motivated by the player’s own desire to be in Europe in the lead-up to the World Cup, and Milan’s fondness for a dash of veteran stardust.

Leonardo may well be out of the job by then. He could be gone by Thursday morning. According to Gazzetta dello Sport, he is ready to rethink his playing strategy, shifting the formation to 4-4-2 and hopeful that system might help return the young Brazilian striker Alexandre Pato to goalscoring form. For all that Milan are damned for their reliance on older footballers, the fresher men they have brought in are not performing. Pato is in a rut and Klaas Jan Huntelaar, the striker recruited from Real, is yet to score in Serie A.

As for their visitors, the bulletins on Totti are mixed. He aggravated his knee problem against Napoli two weeks ago and has trained gingerly.

The bulletins from Totti, meanwhile, have been making headlines. As well hinting at a final World Cup with Italy, words welcomed by national coach Marcello Lippi, Totti has revealed the extent of his rifts with Spalletti – “He was no longer being understood by the players, some of his comments annoyed me a bit, and his resignation had become inevitable”– and approval of Spalletti’s replacement, Ranieri. “Looking at the results since he came in, it looks a good appointment,” said the captain.

Not that Ranieri and Totti always see eye to eye, Totti added. “But at least he’s a Roman, like me. It means we understand each other’s insults.” A little Roman rawness might frighten Milan tonight.

ihawkey@thenational.ae

AC Milan v Roma, KO 10.45pm, Aljazeera Sport + 1 & 3