The former Portuguese international winger remembers TSF the figure of Silvio Berlusconi, president of AC Milan. The technician who arrived at the training center with a device that Futre had never seen. After all, that was “the best team in the world.” Berlusconi was keen to have Paulo Futre in Milan, says the former Portuguese international. The year he spent at AC Milan was not what the Portuguese star expected. The injuries prevented him from playing more than one official match. Still, Berlusconi wanted Futre to stay on that team.
“I remember that the first time I was with Silvio Berlusconi was at the presentation of the team for the 1995/1996 season. He told me that it was a dream that he had had for a long time to hire me, because when I saw Atlético de Madrid, I had the idea that I was an AC Milan player,” he explained to TSF Paulo Futre.
The Portuguese extreme lived an ordeal that stripped him of confidence. “That year I had surgery on my knee for the third time. Berlusconi wanted me to stay for another year. But I knew that I couldn’t take it anymore, that I was no longer at the level of that team. I preferred a change of scenery, a change of team. I wanted I wanted to stay one more year in that great Milan, that was the best team in the world”.
The apparatus generated by the presence of the president of the club showed the importance of the figure of Berlusconi for football in the 90s. “When I arrived by helicopter at the sports city, at Milanello, I saw the respect that everyone had for him. I had never seen, in the 1990s, a trainer arrive by helicopter at a training center. And the respect that everyone had, not just the players, everyone. I can only say good things about this great man named Silvio Berlusconi.”
“I still managed to be champion, but I spent more time in hospitals, clinics, doctors and massage therapists than on the field,” recalls Futre. But the relationship with Berlusconi continued. “Whenever he saw me he said, ‘Come on, you can do it because you’re a lion!’ He gave me incredible morale.”
In Milan, Paulo Futre shared the title with names like Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini, Marcel Desailly, Alessandro Costacurta, Albertini, George Weah, Dejan Savicevic, Zvonimir Boban and Roberto Baggio.
Source: TSF
