Mattia De Sciglio Must Show Signs of Improvement with AC Milan

Not that many people were there to see it, but defender Mattia De Sciglio lifted a trophy for AC Milan on Wednesday night at San Siro.

No one was there for a reason: It was a meaningless friendly between two teams—San Lorenzo the other—playing for a meaningless trophy on a Champions League night. This was not a suitable substitute for regular European football. Not for Milan.

This was depressing.

But that moment on top of the podium was a little significant. Here was De Sciglio, who has spent the better half of his life with the club he supported as a boy, doing something only captains do.

He wants to lift more cups—real ones even. He wants to be captain.

“I’m trying to learn from the experienced players in the dressing room like [Christian] Abbiati, [Daniele] Bonera and [Riccardo] Montolivo who are leaders of this team,” De Sciglio told Corriere della Sera (h/t Football Italia).

“It’d be an honour to one day become the captain of Milan. Those who lead lift the Cups? One more reason to wear it.”

De Sciglio joined the youth ranks at 10 years old and has become a symbol for what is right with Milan: a young homegrown Italian earning first-team experience with a big club. Now 22, De Sciglio has made 55 appearances for Milan.

“I told all the young players that our hope is they can become like him,” CEO Adriano Galliani told Milan Channel (h/t Football Italia).

De Sciglio was buried under the kind of praise that suffocates young players. They called him the next Paolo Maldini, and that never helps.

And he is far from that. His recent performances do not inspire any kind of greatness. Sometimes it’s hard to identify what his biggest strength is. He is not the best crosser of the ball, he loses the ball quite a bit and when he does, he often commits a foul while trying to get it back.

This is a peculiar thing because time is on his side, but time is also an excuse. De Sciglio has to start showing why he is a symbol of this club, why there is all this fuss, and why he can be captain.

Right now, it seems like De Sciglio is reaping the benefits of being the only real youngster that Milan have trusted. They didn’t give these kinds of chances to other players that they developed.

Milan sold Bryan Cristante earlier this summer without so much as a hello and goodbye, and let us not forget that they gave up on prospects Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (now thriving with Borussia Dortmund) and Matteo Darmian (a regular Italy international) years prior.

The Rossoneri do not always exercise the best judgement.

De Sciglio has enjoyed the luxury of starting games, and it is rare for big Italian clubs to give that kind of time to young players.

So he has had a couple of seasons to adjust, to show something stellar, to be the big player he hopes to be. And yet it is only disappointment.

He is overrun on the left flank and sometimes he looks uncomfortable using his left foot, even though he says he feels “at home” on the left side and not the right.

De Sciglio is far too weak on the ball. His frame is thin, and he looks easy to push around.

Maybe it is just a rough patch for him, a valley in his road to development, a part of his growth. Because at one point this year, Real Madrid were reportedly curious enough to think about bidding on him—about €18 million at that, according to Tuttosport (h/t Marca).

After all, it is one thing to field comparisons to Maldini and quite another to get praise from the man himself.

“Mattia has everything to become a top-class footballer,” Maldini told MilanNews.it (h/t Football Italia).

“And like me he’s progressed from the youth set-up to the senior side? Yeah, and he did so in a very complex period for those coming looking to arrive from the academy.”