Snarling Gennaro Gattuso has turned AC Milan around with surprising focus

Different side: Gennaro Gattuso was a combative midfielder but has made a composed start as coach of AC Milan, who are 12 games unbeaten
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Tom Collomosse8 March 2018

For football fans brought up in any of the past three decades, the recent resurgence of AC Milan will come as no surprise. The identity of the man leading the revival is likely to raise a few eyebrows though.

Look at the Milan teams of the 2003-07 era, who won two Champions League titles under Carlo Ancelotti and also reached the 2005 Final, when they were memorably beaten by Liverpool. While it was felt natural for Clarence Seedorf or Filippo Inzaghi to move into management, few casual observers would have seen Gennaro Gattuso as a future top-level coach.

The midfielder won virtually every major honour in football, including the World Cup in Germany in 2006 along with Inzaghi, yet his game was based on aggression, emotion and ferocious determination. He was the steel to Andrea Pirlo’s silk, the brawn in the centre of the park to Pirlo’s brains.

Off the field, he was forever being wound up by his great pal Pirlo, who would play on Gattuso’s quick temper and instinctive personality. Gattuso confessed that he was so nervous before the World Cup Final against France in 2006 that he could not stop going to the toilet. Pirlo, by contrast, played PlayStation games and took an afternoon nap.

Yet while Pirlo settled into retirement, in November Gattuso stepped up from the youth set-up to replace Vincenzo Montella as Milan coach, and he has them on a 12-match unbeaten run. There has been little of the tub-thumping, up-and-at-’em rhetoric that might have been expected, either.

Instead, he has organised the defence, started to bring the best from struggling summer signing Leonardo Bonucci, shown faith in 20-year-old centre-forward Patrick Cutrone and given clarity to players who seemed to be drifting, such as defender Alessio Romagnoli and attacker Hakan Calhanoglu. Gattuso could even end the season with a trophy, after guiding Milan to the final of the Coppa Italia, where they will meet Juventus.

However, there was little to suggest the 40-year-old would be so effective. Gattuso had, after all, walked out on Pisa after winning promotion to the second tier in 2016. There were also abortive spells with Swiss club Sion, OFI Crete and Palermo.

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