Data analysis: Is Pioli’s young AC Milan ready to defend their Serie A title?

The 2022–23 campaign is the 124th season in the existence of AC Milan and the clubs 89th season in the top flight of Italian football. In addition to the domestic league, Milan are participating in this seasons editions of the Coppa Italia, Supercoppa Italiana and UEFA Champions League.

As their Serie A rivals attempt to turn back time, champions Milan are looking to the future. Romelu Lukaku, Inter’s 2020-21 Scudetto hero, and Paul Pogba, the winner of four straight championships at Juventus, have returned to their former clubs following ultimately unsuccessful Premier League stints.

Of course, this is a move that worked for Milan last season, as Zlatan Ibrahimović had played for three different clubs in three different countries between featuring in the Rossoneri’s two most recent title-winning campaigns. Ibrahimović, soon to turn 41, has signed up for another season, but there is a young, exciting core to the Milan team who secured that latest title and will now bid to defend it.

In this data analysis, we will screen Milans squad structure. Adding to that, we will take a closer look on the statistics and data of some key players in Stefano Piolis current team in this analysis.

Squad Age

Milan had the fourth-youngest average age of their starters in Serie A last season (25 years 337 days), older only than Empoli (24 years 325 days), Spezia (24 years 334 days) and Torino (25 years 189 days). And this average was dragged up significantly by Ibrahimović and Olivier Giroud.

Among the 10 outfield players to start 20 or more league games for Milan in 2021-22, nine were below that average age at the end of the season, with Giroud (35 years 233 days) the exception.

Giroud scored 11 goals, including two the day the Rossoneri won the title at Sassuolo, but even he made only 22 starts as Stefano Pioli showed faith in his young charges.

Pierre Kalulu (21 starts) was 21 years of age on the final day; Rafael Leão (31 starts), Sandro Tonali (31 starts), Brahim Díaz (25 starts) and Alexis Saelemaekers (22 starts) were all 22; Theo Hernández (30 starts) and Fikayo Tomori (30 starts) were both 24; and the now-departed Franck Kessié (25 starts) was 25 years old, along with Davide Calabria (24 starts). Of those, only Díaz was not in the starting XI against Sassuolo, with the 28-year-old Rade Krunić preferred.

That this young Milan side held their nerve on that day – needing to avoid defeat to ensure they could not be pipped at the post by Inter – justified Pioli’s approach, and the club have seemingly sought to get even younger ahead of their title defence.

Milan’s title winners will undoubtedly benefit from their 2021-22 experiences, too. Leão (85), Tonali (60), Díaz (47), Saelemaekers (45), Tomori (34) and Kalulu (13) had each played comfortably fewer than 100 games in Europe’s top five leagues heading into the previous campaign. Kalulu had tallied a mere 727 minutes prior to his breakout year.

In the Champions League, they were even greener. Besides Giroud, who had played 41 games and started 25, those nine other Serie A regulars had made just 11 combined appearances and five combined starts in Europe’s elite club competition up to that point.

Milan’s European c