Milan, Feb 22: AC Milan president and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi watched his team come back from two goals down to beat city rivals inter 3-2 in their Derby and then ordered his coach to change tactics. Berlusconi yesterday told reporters before the game that he was not happy with coach Carlo Ancelotti's decision to play Andriy Shevchenko as a lone striker and said he preferred to see two forwards in the starting line-up.
After Milan were left trailing 2-0 at halftime Ancelotti brought on an extra striker in Danish International Jon Dahl Tomasson, who promptly scored 11 minutes after the restart to begin Milan's revival.
The businessman turned politician, who has financed Milan's near two decades of success in Italian and European football, said he wanted Ancelotti to play with two strikers from now on.
''I announce that I'm going to write, as president, a letter to the coach of Milan in which, given that we are called Milan and we are top of the league, contenders in Europe and we have the history that we have, we cannot go onto the field with a formation which renounces half of our attacking power,'' Berlusconi told a television network.
''So every coach of Milan, from Monday onwards will be obliged to field two strikers, otherwise he can give up being coach of Milan,'' he added.
Berlusconi said he was not offering advice but giving an ''order'' to his coach and cited the second half as evidence of the benefits of a twin strike pairing.
''Milan didn't play well in the first half. They couldn't express themselves properly because with only one striker on the pitch a team will have difficulties. In the second half, with a second striker on, the play went differently and the results came,” he said.
''The first (goal) came from the additional striker brought on, who found himself in a position that one lone striker wouldn't have been able to be in,'' he added.
''The second goal from Kaka came because the two strikers opened up the space for him to shoot and it was the same with the third goal,'' said Berlusconi.
The politician was heavily criticised for talking tactics after Italy lost the final of Euro 2000 to France and Berlusconi, then leader of the opposition, took issue with the then Italy coach Dino Zoff's tactics.
Zoff resigned but that didn't stop Berlusconi from continuing to make statements on his club's performances, criticising them last season for their lack of entertainment on their way to their sixth European Cup triumph. Bureau Report