Paolo Maldini has received an award for his work today and commented on the future of some players.
Maldini, together with Frederic Massara, today won the Best Director of Sport of the year of the Globe Soccer Awards in Dubai. Afterwards he gave an interview to Sky, as reported by Milannews.it:
“The award is a satisfaction. I am not a Director of Sport, my role is not one that is present in all teams, it’s associated partly with that of the Director of Sport and partly with that of the Head of the Technical Area. A different role that I have sewn a little on myself and after 4 years I am very happy to be here in this new chapter of my life.”
On Ibrahimović’s words that he wants to continue to play and on his return: “That’s what he told us. We renewed his contract with a clear ideal. The goal is to have him with us for the Dubai training camp and hopefully on the pitch in January.”
On his role as a father and on young guys: “There are feelings and there are feelings… there are also careers and careers, it’s not the same for everyone. For me and I think also for my two sons there has been enormous pressure; I’ve never felt the lightness of a young guy who does not feel the responsibility. We also need to understand young people, we cannot base it on what our experience has been, each of us lives it in our own way. We have to adapt what our experiences have been to modern times.”
On the Scudetto battle with Napoli like years ago: “I remember it well, those were great years for Calcio. We had a great team, they had Maradona and other great Champions. For us it was the beginning of 25 years of success and now there can be this clash. They have overshadowed everything the other teams have done because we – having only 2 points fewer than last year and having pass the Champions League Group Stage – find ourselves 8 points behind a team that honestly did an incredible first part of the season. Great credit to them, we know we cannot give up. We will be there until the end and we’ll see: everything is in their hands and this is a great advantage, but the league is very long.”
On the renewals of Leão and Bennacer: “We’ve been talking about this for months, if not years. When the time comes we’ll meet and when there is a decision to be made then we’ll make it. Now we’re making predictions… the idea was to close before the World Cup, especially for the players who went to the World Cup; in this case for Leão but it was not possible. With Bennacer we’ll have a chance to talk to him and his agents in these days.”