Milan Under Amorim: Three at the Back, and the Sickness Behind the Ball

Minute 44 at San Siro. The score was already 0-2 in Benfica's favour, and in the stands the singing did not stop so much as drop into whispers. It is the sound anyone who has ever sat in a stadium recognises instantly: the sound of a crowd trying to understand what just happened to their team.

I watched that match from Chengdu, in a room still stacked with the notebooks of more than fifty years following football. At 69, I have learned that the world still runs faster than I do, but longing always stands still. That night my longing was Milan — a Milan without the blazing European nights, a Milan of Ruben Amorim, trying to rebuild itself on a back-three.

Milan lost 2-0 at home to Benfica in the Europa League. It was their third match without a win: a draw with Juventus, a draw with Lazio, then defeat to Benfica. What matters is how it happened. Milan went behind in each of the last two matches. In both, they found themselves needing to recover a two-goal deficit. Once can be called an accident. Twice in a row has become a habit.

Amorim arrived at Milan in June, replacing Max Allegri. He himself says he has had 'two months of work'. Milan also returned to European competition after a season away — a good signal for revenue and for image, but it could not rescue a grey first half.

Amorim's shape is a 3-4-2-1, at times shifting into a 3-5-2. Three centre-backs, two advanced wing-backs, two No.10s behind a single striker. In England, during his time at Manchester United, he was criticised for being too rigid with this system. Milan opened the season in a similar shape under Allegri, so the argument about the system is nothing new.

But this is where I want to pause a little longer. Milan's biggest problem does not lie in the moment they lose the ball, but in the moment they have just won it.

Amorim said so himself. He said Milan create more trouble for themselves in possession than when the opponent has the ball, and that those turnovers happen in areas that are extremely dangerous for their own goal. That is a structural admission, not an excuse. It points to problems in the build-up under pressure and in the protection that should follow a turnover.

I rewatched those situations several times, and what bothered me most was the first thirty seconds after Milan win the ball. The three centre-backs spread wide, the wing-backs push on, the two No.10s hunt space between the lines. That structure only looks beautiful when the ball reaches the right foot at the right moment. When it slips a beat out of time, the whole shape stands exposed with an enormous space behind it.

And when the ball does reach the final third, Milan stall. Amorim says it plainly: his side lacks creativity near the box and does not shoot enough, even though the staff have built routines to get more bodies into the area. Anatoliy Trubin, Benfica's goalkeeper, dealt with almost everything Milan produced.

Then there is the first half. Amorim admitted Milan were not 'in the game' for the opening forty-five minutes, and that this was the second consecutive match with first-half problems. Some problems cannot be fixed by a shape. When a team walks out like a side doing a job rather than a side chasing a win, no formation hides it.

The one bright note in this gloomy run is Diego Moreira. Introduced at half-time against Lazio, he scored a brace and turned the match around. It is evidence that Amorim can influence games from the bench. It is also evidence that the original plan was wrong.

Then there is Christian Pulisic. He came on from the bench against Benfica. It may be fitness management, it may be rotation, it may be a tactical call. But when a team is starving for creativity and its most creative player is sitting outside, people are entitled to ask. If the creativity problem persists, Pulisic's role becomes a talking point for both the dressing room and the press.

Now the part I want to say plainly, because I have seen it far too many times in fifty years of holding a pen. Collective memory always needs a culprit, and the easiest culprit to find is always the formation. Three at the back. Four at the back. The name of the system is put on trial first.

I think that reading is wrong. Milan are losing because the personnel profile does not yet match what the system demands, not because the system itself is wrong. A 3-4-2-1 requires two wing-backs capable of running all match on the flanks and two No.10s skilful enough to receive in tight spaces. Miss either profile, and the system becomes a beautiful but hollow frame. And the most dangerous thing is that people will blame the frame instead of asking who is not yet good enough to stand inside it.

That also means: if Amorim switches to a 3-5-2 or a 4-3-3, the result only changes if the people change with it. Changing shape without changing personnel merely moves the problem to a different address.

A pitch never betrays anyone; people simply forget that it also knows how to hold.

On finances and transfers, I will be honest: what is publicly available at this stage is far too little. There are no revenue figures, no wage bill, no concrete transfer fee on record. Milan returned to European competition after a season away, which certainly helps matchday and broadcast income, but nobody has put a specific figure on it. Silent data has never been proof of safety.

Empty seats still ring with singing, because longing is a form of support too. At San Siro that night, no seat was empty. People sat there, sang, then fell quiet. The distance between a project under construction and an early crisis is sometimes just one half of football.

The Italian press is not famous for patience. If Milan produce another limp first half like the one against Benfica, the story will shift from 'adaptation period' to 'red alert' within a week. Pressure on Amorim is rising, and it rises less because of three games without a win — Juventus, Lazio and Benfica is no easy run — than because of how his team collapsed.

So the question I leave for the young writers tonight: when a system fails, will you write about the system, or about the people chosen to run inside it? I write slowly, because football is not in a hurry - it only waits for someone patient enough to understand.