SempreMilan
·13 May 2025
Boban discusses Scaroni, Furlani, Ibrahimovic, Bennacer and idea of Maldini return
Boban discusses Scaroni, Furlani, Ibrahimovic, Bennacer and idea of Maldini return | OneFootball
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The second part of Zvonimir Boban’s interview with Andrea Longoni has been published, and there are more bold comments from the former AC Milan man.
Boban is someone who has never been shy about sharing his feelings when it comes to Milan, a club with whom he won four Serie A titles and one UEFA Champions League title during his decade-long stint with the Rossoneri.
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During the first part of the episode, Boban had spoken about the decision to sack Paolo Maldini and why it was handled in a ‘shameful’ way, some of the signings that he was close to making but couldn’t get over the line, and his concerns about American ownership.
Now, the second part of the interview has been released on Longoni’s YouTube channel ‘Milan Hello’ and he continued to make his thoughts clear on the current management, but started with some considerations on Ismael Bennacer. MilanNews relayed his comments.
“Bennacer is a super underrated player, and you did it too because you didn’t understand him. What don’t you like about Bennacer?”
His physical condition, the many injuries. He’s been out a lot…
“That’s fair enough, I’ve been out a lot too, others have been out a lot too.”
It seemed he didn’t want to stay at Milan anymore?
“But why did they massacre him in every way? Bennacer is an extraordinary player, underrated. What he has given to Milan is exceptional. I do not defend the choice we made on Bennacer.
“On the contrary, I also enjoy acknowledging my mistakes in the maturity that I hope I should have at 57 years old. On the contrary, my defeats are those that have helped me understand things. Bennacer is the player who steals the most balls in the world per minute played.
“He is the player who touches the ball almost more than the minutes played, he is always on the ball. I do not know how people do not see it.”
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After the injury in the derby I never saw that player again…
“Well yes, after an injury it takes a bit of time for him to come back. Others were given all the time they needed and he was given it right away… He didn’t know how to communicate, he’s a closed-off guy, a total soldier.
“How come I was so interested in him? In the meantime Giampaolo said we sign Bennacer. We went to see him better and I found a statement from Cristiano Ronaldo, he was talking about the players he likes in Italy. And he said about this number 10 from Empoli. He doesn’t even remember his name.
“If Ronaldo says it and he hasn’t complimented any other player in the world then I’m going to watch this game… Absurd, he massacred them all by himself, Juve never managed to catch him. There he was a number 10, he made a huge mess.
“He needed to be cleaned up, he needed to be stabilised, he didn’t even know how to turn around to change the game. We worked on it. Afterwards I see that he was in the Arsenal youth team and so I call Wenger.
“He says to me: ‘Zvone, if you have to go to war with one person in the world then you go with Ismael’. So you know, one plus one, you like him for his potential and then you take him. Not to play right away, he needed to be worked on for a while.
“He only looked at the ball, he was a suitable and withdrawn No.10. He was born a 10, you could see it. But he is also an 8, he won the award as MVP of the African Cup of Nations as an 8, not as a 6.”
What are your thoughts on Paolo Scaroni?
“A person who should never be in football. He has nothing to do with football. But you know, certain people, because of the power they have had and the positions they have had, have never really asked themselves deeply.
“They have never created that spiritual structure to ask themselves: is it right for me to go there? Because obviously it goes towards interests. But Milan?… He has nothing to do with Milan. Even though he is still a great manager, he has had great successes.
“I have not followed his life just as he has not followed mine. Once we had to go to Lega Calcio and he couldn’t. We were at the stadium, I was addressing him formally because I was keeping him quite distant.
“Maldini says to him: ‘Paolo, for Zvone this has been his bread and butter in recent years, he has been involved in the institutions, he knows the League, he knows how to do these things’.
“Then I also had these duties of representation in the contract, but I didn’t care because we had to sort out other things. And Scaroni says: ‘Ok, then send me your CV…’ (laughs).”
Photo by Jurij Kodrun/Getty Images
Did he ask you for your resume?
“I told him to go to hell and threw him out of the office. I said to him: ‘What the f*** are you doing in football?’. He said to me: ‘Why should I know what you’ve done in life?’. Okay (laughs). You don’t have to, but then I don’t have to respect you either.
“But he said it in a natural way, not even realising it in my opinion. It’s not that I got angry afterwards, but at the time I reacted by taking him and throwing him out of the office. That’s what I think of Scaroni.”
What do you think of Giorgio Furlani instead?
“Giorgio Furlani is a Milan fan, a true Milan fan. But in his own way. He was built differently. He was a mathematician, a businessman for a fund and that is his way of seeing things, he is not able to distinguish well what Milan represents for us.
“But he has supported the club all his life, I have known him before and it is not up for discussion. Then he has his bosses to whom he answers religiously, forgetting about passion, sport, football, everything that is belonging, all the other values that are Milan for all the normal people who love Milan.
“You don’t get it there, he is just a square manager and that’s it. He doesn’t know how to play football, what skills does Giorgio Furlani have to play football? And that’s normal. He should surround himself with people who understand football. Someone who understood so much sent him away.
“He should also have asked himself questions, understood what is good for Milan and that Maldini and Massara were good for Milan. It was technical protection, not to mention the representation of the symbolism that Paolo in he carries himself.
“I blame him more for that than the fact that he knows or doesn’t know… he doesn’t know. And he thinks that Moncada knows everything. That’s the fact. Because scouting is enough for him to understand everything.
“Coach? Of course, great coach or not, let’s see: this is the budget and that’s it, they’re the same. They don’t give importance to these things because they don’t know how to play football. They have no idea.”
And the sporting director, in this regard?
“If they get a sporting director, he will be completely closed and stuck, practically reduced to a one-level technocracy with no ambitions. I don’t think he will have an important role that can change history.
“Instead, he should have a role of representing the club, being in the middle between the team, the coach and the club: protecting everyone and everything, that’s what the technical director does. He has to see when a player is in crisis, the coach doesn’t talk to him and has to go to the player.
“When the coach is in crisis or maybe a little upset, he has to ask him a few questions to clarify his ideas or put a little pressure on him. The role of sporting director is too important, but that’s not how they see it.
“For Giorgio [Furlani], Moncada is already an excellent scout as I said, he can choose the players and that’s enough. I don’t think they consider all the other SD work important, otherwise it would have already been there for months.”
A few months after that famous interview with Sky, did you understand Ibrahimovic’s role?
“I’m sorry. I said it for the good of Ibrahimovic who I love so much. I am fond of him and I always will be especially for that moment when he came back and what he gave to Milan in that year and a half.
“I will not move from this, he is my footballing brother if you want. For everything he is doing now it is not like Ibrahimovic, not for what we thought he was. Even this latest delegitimisation… With his proclaimed strength, dignity and courage you leave immediately. Immediately.
“Where has everything I thought he had disappeared to? I am so sorry, it is not good for him but it is not good for anyone because he is an extraordinary player and in any case he has given Milan so much.
“We can see it as growth, as disorientation in being left without certain clarities that football gives. That is normal, but I hope he reaches the right conclusions and detaches himself and truly grows as God commands.”
He’s also an influencer on Instagram, right?
“He is not a director of Milan, he is from RedBird. He is not in the organisational chart. I’m joking (smiles). You can’t protect him for what he was, this saddens me. But you have to think, you have to study, you have to read, you have to think about others and work on yourself.”
What do you think of Gerry Cardinale?
“I don’t care in the slightest.”
Little or nothing remains of the Scudetto-winning side and it will probably be further dismantled this summer…
“It’s hard to explain, as if they wanted to ‘De-Maldini-ise’ or ‘De-Massara-ise’. I was there at the beginning but those two have been the symbol of these three years. It’s hard to even believe it, why hurt yourself like that?
“They probably didn’t believe that certain players could do well at Milan but what they didn’t understand is that it’s not just a question of individual quality, but it’s a question of how you assemble the team, the spirit that was created: they won together, they are winners.
“Add something and you already have a beautiful team. Add a right back, a young striker… invest! Buy Osimhen, get a great right-back. There you have a team that has been in the Champions League semi-finals, won a Scudetto. A team that has character, that one pushes the other, that works on the pitch.
“Dismantling this was incredibly imprudent, and at the beginning of the summer I said so. It’s not a question of individual quality of the players, that’s the point. It’s the group, we know that team spirit is often stronger than individuality. If that isn’t there, you never win.”
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Do you ever hear Maldini commenting on what’s happening at Milan?
“We talk, yes. He suffers, I know he suffers. It’s hard. But obviously he always remains very, very attached to Milan, he was born as a true Milanista. I became there, you who were born there is a whole other thing and I realise this because I have been with Dinamo Zagreb since day one.
“Even though I love and respect Milan so much, the symbols and flags are different. Paolo feels all this, he has given his whole life for Milan. The other day I told him that in the end he has to be happy, at the end of the day, whether he comes back or not – who knows, he wouldn’t mind a little (smiles).
“The years come for everyone but he would still be quite fresh – he has completed his story at Milan. As a player we don’t talk about it, but now also as a director. And now people have recognised it but at the beginning it was a disaster. For him, for me, for everyone.”
Were you already following me when I spoke about the possibility of a return with the Saudi Arabia?
“You weren’t that important at the time but I saw some videos… I don’t remember very well.”
Will Paolo return? It’s the fans’ dream…
“We talked before, he would always be ready to give himself back to Milan in the most absolute way as he always did as a player or as a manager. If it will happen I don’t know, I have no idea. I have no idea.
“Honestly if he had told me something like that I wouldn’t have revealed it to you here. But it doesn’t seem to me that there are any situations… now.”
And will you ever return to Milan?
“I will never go back to Milan. I will always love Milan. My last football station is Dinamo Zagreb, after this experience I will never work in football again, no matter how hard it gets. I have quite clear ideas about what I want to do. It’s a bit of a closing circle.
“My father was a representative for Dinamo Zagreb in a small place where everyone supports Hajduk Split. It’s as if you were born a Milan fan in a place where everyone is an Inter fan. I swear, to give you an idea.
“I grew up like this, then at 13 I went to a Dinamo Zagreb football school where I played with my brother, we lived in the old shacks where the young people lived. Then at 15 and a half I was in the first team, at 18 I was the captain… I was born in the blue, all my life is in the blue and I will die in the blue.
“You were born in the red and black, you will live in the red and black and you will die in the red and black. For me this is Dinamo Zagreb. I love Milan so much and I respect them a lot, they have class, they have something different compared to all the other clubs in the world.
“Barcelona have something a little, but not this class. No other club in the world has this class that Milan has.”
If Milan’s season were to end with the best possible scenario, winning the Coppa Italia final, how would you judge it?
“There is now an accepted mediocrity on the part of many people. Being happy for a Supercoppa that they should never have played in… Then it was beautiful, I enjoyed it so much that evening because it is too much fun to do it that way. But then it ends there, it is a flash.
“Unfortunately the season is quite dramatic, it is not up to the greatness of Milan. No one who really understands, who gives value to what AC Milan should be, can be happy with this season. At the time they made us understand that we should get out of the Coppa Italia immediately to go for the league and the Champions League.
“This is Milan and this is what everyone who works at Milan and loves Milan should aspire to. These are the levels of Milan, this is the greatness of Milan. Not now with the Coppa Italia, what does it save? Personally, zero. In fact, it is almost a bit sad. It is ridiculous.
“It can save Bologna, it can save some other average team that has won little. At Milan it cannot save the season. Better to win it, also to give a bit of strength to the boys, to make them feel a bit stronger for next year where we will have to sort things out.
“Yes, it is better to win it. But let the Coppa Italia save Milan’s season… Come on, come on, let’s not joke.”
Who would you like as the coach next year?
“I haven’t thought about it much: Conte, like all people who understand football. Although I believe it would be a very difficult relationship between this ownership and Antonio Conte.
“I don’t know how long it would last and how much he would be able to accept certain things, how much they would clash over players, the market and what he sees as necessary for Milan to improve and win. Because he wants to win. So… But I haven’t thought about it honestly.
“I didn’t like the last Allegri at all, you can’t play that kind of football at Milan. Doing only pragmatism isn’t Milan-style, although I respect his ability to understand the balance of the team and understand where other teams have problems. I like a different ideal for Milan, I would look for a coach who plays a Milan style of play.”
“I hope that at some point we get to a more ambitious ownership, more football-oriented, that understands what Milan is, its values and its greatness.
“They have stabilised it, they are doing good marketing and ok, that they bring in people who really know about football and who have the passion and ambition to win, otherwise we would always clash with the same problems.
“Although I say that there are many good players. I can’t say that Reijnders and Fofana are not good purchases. Yes, they are good purchases. Isn’t Maignan a phenomenon? I hope they renew him… That’s the point.
“It’s difficult for them to change their culture and the idea of what for them is the Milan company, while for us it is the Milan club. So I hope they can change course, take people who understand football and that they can build a different and winning Milan, or at least competitive.
“They just need to rethink what Milan really is, then they will realise. But they have to change up.”
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