1 hour ago
20
Matteo Gabbia has undergone a few years of apprenticeship, and has emerged out of the other side as a leader of his boyhood club.
La Gazzetta dello Sport speak of Gabbia as being ‘Luka Modric’s spiritual assistant, 14 years younger’. He plays behind the croatian, holds an Italian passport in a dressing room where 77 percent of his teammates are foreign nationals, and is taking charge of his beloved Milan.
Along with Bartesaghi and Torriani, Gabbia is one of the few ‘sons of Vismara’, i.e. products of the youth academy at Milan who end up graduating to the senior squad. He arrived there with a sense of pride and also responsibility, to defend the colours he grew up cherishing.
Mentality
One of the most iconic images of Gabbia is next to Rafael Leao after the Portuguese’s second goal against Fiorentina. The winger is wild with joy and begins to take off his shirt, Matteo is equally happy but even more aware, stopping him from getting a yellow card. Mission accomplished.
Gabbia is studying Modric, yes, but it wasn’t Luka who directed him. He will be an example for further improvement, but Matteo has always been a wise young man. You can be a senator even at 26, and it is quite strange to think he is the same age as Leao, the player he helped in that moment.
Gabbia’s mental makeup is like that and you have to be born with it, at least to a certain extent. Last season, during Milan’s disastrous campaign, the club repeatedly decided to send Gabbia up in front of the cameras to assess often negative results.
Why? They already knew that Matteo would be balanced, would not fuel controversy and would expertly handle the most uncomfortable questions. Most importantly, he would make an appeal about that sense of belonging that seemed to have been forgotten.
The only one
This year, Gabbia finds himself at the heart of a defence that has conceded seven goals in 12 games so far across the league and the Coppa Italia, two of which were penalties. He, along with Strahinja Pavlovic, is the defender who has benefited most from Allegri’s obsessive defensive focus.
Yet things could have gone differently. Matteo wasn’t in the hypothetical summer starting XIs, or at least he appeared intermittently. He wasn’t a mainstay like he is today, and when it seemed like a new central defender would arrive from the market, many presumed he would make way.
Then that centre-back didn’t arrive, so the man from Busto Arsizio began to occupy the centre of the new three-man back line and hasn’t appeared since. He’s the only player in the Rossoneri squad to have never missed a minute in the league.
His high level of individual attention has obviously not gone unnoticed by an old acquaintance like Gennaro Gattuso, who called him up to the national team during the last international break after a year’s absence.
It is a source of pride for Matteo and a source of pride for the Rossoneri fans, who would be delighted to see the captain’s armband around his arm when and if Mike Maignan leaves. Gabbia, unlike Mike, isn’t worried about his contract: a year ago he renewed his contract until 2029.
Sliding doors moment
And to think that as a boy he played in midfield, a path easily reflected in the precision of his passes. Filippo Galli, then head of AC Milan’s youth academy, revealed some background on Gabbia in a recent interview.
“We had to convince him to drop back into defence, and Matteo didn’t take it very well: every now and then he’d get angry and make 50-meter passes to let us know he wasn’t satisfied… He had the characteristics we were looking for in the defenders of the future” he said.
“Even back then, we wanted to develop a style of play in the youth teams that involved building from the back, therefore with center backs with well-trained feet and a balanced personality. Matteo was the perfect fit.”
Matteo truly blossomed after returning from his loan at Villarreal, when he was hastily recalled by the Rossoneri halfway into his year-long loan because of an injury crisis. He hadn’t actually been a key player in the yellow jersey, but it was an experience that shaped him and visibly improved.
The pinnacle of his ‘second life’ with Milan? Obviously, the last-gasp winner in the derby back in September 2024. Needless to say, not even then, not even for a second did he consider taking his shirt off.
English (US) ·