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For a year and a half, Silvio Berlusconi was left without football.
In April 2017, the former prime minister of Italy sold his AC Milan for a total of 740 million euros to a Chinese consortium led by businessman Li Yonghong, thus ending an era that had lasted more than 30 years.
Less than 15 months later, he and his Fininvest holding bought Monza 1912, a lower-class club from a community of 120,000, which is located in the suburb of Milan and has little to offer other than the legendary race track.
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But Berlusconi wouldn’t be Berlusconi if he weren’t up to something with a provincial club. Average is a foreign word for the now 83-year-old, so he explained bluntly what he planned to do with Monza when he took office.
Donati compares Monza to Leipzig
He wanted to move from Serie C, Italy’s third division, to Serie A as soon as possible, and only with Italian players who “don’t wear decent tattoos, beards, earrings and hairstyles.”
Apparently, there were enough actors who could meet the strange requirements of the right-wing boss of Forza Italia. And apparently they were strong enough to implement the first part of the Berlusconi project.
With a huge gap over the runners-up in the table, Monza celebrated their promotion in Serie B, which was finally awarded to them at the green table due to the cancellation due to the corona pandemic.
The second part of the mission is beginning, and Giulio Donati, a former Bundesliga player, has been in the middle for a few weeks. “I am very proud to be in Monza because here I have the opportunity to play for two personalities like Mr. Berlusconi and Mr. Galliani,” Donati said in SPORT1.
The 30-year-old winger, who was under contract in Leverkusen and Mainz from 2013 to 2019, is now part of the Monza project, and they are not afraid of big goals. “They both brought Italian football to the top of Europe. I hope we can do a lot with Monza as well.”
It is not an illusion for Donati that Monza is turning into the Italian equivalent of a German upstart. “I compare Monza a bit to RB Leipzig from a few years ago,” he says. “The club went from the German regional league to the top of the Bundesliga and is now one of the top three clubs there. I can easily imagine a similar path for Monza.”
The successful duo from Milan meet again
The fact that Berlusconi chose the small club in the interior of Milan was due to Adriano Galliani, with whom he had already established a pleasant relationship at AC Milan. As managing director and later vice president, Galliani became the brains of Milan and was instrumental in ensuring that the Rossoneri won the national championship cup and the Champions League five times during his tenure.
Galliani, who closes the circle, was active in Monza before his time at AC Milan and is also a native of the area. “Promotion to Serie B is the first step towards promotion to Serie A,” Galliani recently said in Sky Sport. “We want to give this joy to the city where I was born.”
“I have not yet spoken with Berlusconi, but I have spoken with Galliani”, reveals Donati. “During the conversation, I immediately realized what his ambitions are. Berlusconi is also a man who knows what he wants. Their vision was immediately clear.”
Berlusconi and Galliani, the two elder gentlemen, have met again in Brianza, the region northeast of the metropolis of Milan, and are planning a major attack on national monuments, including AC Milan itself.
Berlusconi’s pomp only laughed at first
It is anything but impossible that they could succeed in their grandiose plans even with a rather no-nonsense club. When Berlusconi had the team helicopter into the stadium after taking Milan in 1986, he announced – to the tune of Richard Wagner – that he would be “the best team in the world.” Those who were smiling at him were already two years later he was wrong when Milan won Serie A and began their impressive triumphal advance.
Italian media have long reported that the duo intends to repeat history. “What the new Fininvest is currently building at Monza is like an armored cruiser,” the newspaper wrote. The day A few weeks ago. No wonder: the investments made for the promotion to Series B increased dramatically.
While other Italian bi-tier clubs are investing an average of two million euros in new players, the newcomer has already put a whopping 17 million on the table, and the trend is on the rise.
“I never had any doubt that Monza would go into Serie B,” Berlusconi recently told the local newspaper. The citizen. “Promotion to Serie A depends on many factors, some of which are unpredictable. We understand the predictable and will do our best to use it to our advantage.”
“Sometimes a goal is more important in life than a dream”
For Donati it is already clear where the journey of the new rich club will lead: to the greats of Italian football as soon as possible. “I hope we can go straight to Serie A, we have to try to achieve it. Sometimes a goal is more important in life than a dream.”
So that nothing is left to chance, Berlusconi has now relaxed his rigid guidelines.
Now there are some foreign players on the team, and the Monza boss even turns a blind eye to the cult of the body.
“Meanwhile, some players have tattoos, otherwise it would be too strange,” says Donati and laughs. “Today almost all footballers have one, it is very difficult to find good players without tattoos. Berlusconi noticed it too.”
