The new AC Milan continues where the old one left off

The place looks very different today, of course. For all the mounting frenzy, the seething fear in Milan at the prospect of a winner-takes-all derby erupting over the next week is the accepted wisdom that both are playing for a silver medal. Whoever wins, the overwhelming favorite for the final will be the team that emerges from the meeting between Real Madrid and Manchester City in the other semi-final. As unfeasible as it seemed in 2003, Italian football is now an underdog.

Pioli, however, is undaunted. Economically, Serie A teams can no longer compete with even the little boy of the Premier League: Milan were outbid by Bournemouth, no less, when both were on the hunt for Italian midfielder Nicolo Zaniolo in January. Italy’s luster has faded and its power has faded. This Milan is not a reprise of the glory days when Serie A towered over the world, but something closer to a requiem for them.

“But if that’s true, you have to be innovative,” Pioli said. “With ideas, with quality of work.” Necessity, he said, has been the mother of invention. “I think it has become an underrated championship,” he said. “There are a lot of different ideas, different styles, a lot of confrontations with teams and coaches who have different systems of play or how they interpret games.”

That in turn has helped the new crop of Italian teams – their squad may have shrunk since the time they acted as a roll call of global superstars – to make up for the financial shortfall.

They may not have the best players anymore. They may not have the shine they once had. In the bright, harsh light, a team as great as AC Milan could even look like a minnow. But they have, Pioli said, an “knowledge” rooted in the variety of challenges they face domestically, one that means they are “prepared” for anything Europe can throw at it.

“Calcio has been suffering for a few years,” he said. “But now it’s ready to be a protagonist again.”