The Champions League preliminaries have always been one of those matches that can change a year. Milan-Psv, tomorrow evening, is a fundamental turning point for the Rossoneri's year, a crossroads that can lead an entire environment to depression or exaltation. A match that is worth a season, as they say in these cases. For Milan, but also, surprisingly, for Juventus and Napoli.
Losing, Milan would have to deeply rethink themselves and Allegri's bench, after the exhausting summer minuets, would wobble dangerously. There would also be a shortage of money for the last – and apparently necessary – adjustments to the squad and the grumbling of the fans, burned by a minor signing campaign and a disastrous debut in the league, would become deafening. In short, a tragedy, sportingly speaking.
But not all the bad, they will think in Turin, comes to hurt. Yes, because the elimination of Milan, beyond the considerations on the rating of Italian football, for Juventus (but also for Napoli) would represent a real deal. From a sporting point of view, but above all from an economic point of view.
The sporting point of view is easy to say: if any of the four teams included in the second band of the ranking (Arsenal, Olympique Lyon, Schalke 04 and, indeed, Milan) that have to face the preliminaries were eliminated, Juve, as "first of the third ones”, would automatically climb into the second band with the consequent advantages at the Nyon polls. It must be said that Lyon, who lost 2-0 at home to Real Sociedad, are already a foot and a half outside the big-eared cup and that, therefore, a possible elimination of Milan does not seem necessary for Juve to move up band.
The question becomes interesting if you look at it from the economic point of view. The television contracts of the individual countries for the transmission of the Champions League matches are worth good figures, the Italian one about 80 million. This marketpool is divided among the participating teams: it goes without saying that if Milan were to be eliminated, the number of Italians in the race would drop to 2, ensuring Juventus and Napoli much higher revenues.
So much so that already last year, precisely by virtue of Guidolin's exit in the Udinese preliminaries, Juventus was the team that, between prizes and television, collected the most in the entire competition (even more than the finalists Dortmund and Bayern Munich), despite having stopped in the quarter-finals.
The final estimate speaks of a profit increased by twenty million, pure oxygen for the coffers of the companies. Oxygen which, perhaps, could turn into the purchase of some champions in the last days of the transfer market.
Mors tua vita mea, in short, and never mind if the Italian rating plummets. In addition to the Milan fans, those of Naples and Juventus will also sit on the sofa, rediscovering themselves, for one evening, as a bit Dutch.
