According to Milan News, AC Milan owner Jerry Cardinale spoke about the club's changes over the past four years at a Wall Street Journal sports event on July 16, saying the team is reshaping its culture.
Cardinale said, "We let the facts speak for themselves. Ibrahimovic has been here for the last 40 days: from the end of the season until now, we've compressed what would normally be six months of work into a single period. We've made a lot of changes and are working hard to reshape the club culture." He also mentioned that Ibrahimovic asked him a question this year that has kept him thinking all season: "What do we represent?"
Cardinale stated that Milan had just won the championship when it was acquired four years ago, but the club's situation deteriorated after Berlusconi's departure, and it was subsequently sold to a Chinese company, which eventually went bankrupt. Elliott Management then took over, and he bought the club from them.
Cardinale said that, given this context, Milan could only follow in others' footsteps. He also linked this to Italy's third consecutive failure to qualify for the World Cup, noting that Serie A was as strong as the Premier League when he was a child, but things changed, and these events are interconnected.
When asked about Ibrahimovic, Cardinale said he didn't know how to answer at the time because Milan "represents nothing." He also recalled his comments when announcing Amorin, saying that he wasn't targeting anyone specifically, but simply wanted to say that the team should strive to win, not just play to avoid losing. Cardinale believes that England's switch to a 5-3-2 formation after taking the lead in the semi-final, a move towards playing it safe, was a sign of not wanting to lose. He said that if you view sports as a metaphor for life, this is failure, which is why Milan began to implement these changes.
