Ahead of this weekend's Milan derby, which will be the last of captain Paolo Maldini's career, the 40-year-old legend gave a long interview to Milan Channel in which he talked about a range of topics.
One of these was Inter coach Jose Mourinho, who he thinks lives up his hype.
"Mourinho won in Portugal with a good but not phenomenal team," he said. "He won in England and everything seemed easy and simple. But then we saw it's actually quite difficult. For the image of a coach results are what matter most. Without results what he says would count for nothing. For example, someone like [Zdenek] Zeman is not credible."
Maldini then went on to reflect on why Milan have failed to win domestic honours over the last years.
"It's a bit strange," he commented. "From 1999 the club started a policy of using young players, which did not bring great results.
"Then from 2002 we started to buy champions again, like [Alessandro] Nesta, [Clarence] Seedorf, etc. People say Milan are old but we have also bought many young players, like [Yoann] Gourcuff, [Alberto] Gilardino, and Pato.
"Of course, when you use only young players, like during [Alberto] Zaccheroni's period, it's difficult to win. Then, after winning in 2004, we finished behind Juventus for two years. After that everyone knows what happened, staying on course with a team that ended up getting punished by the sporting justice."
During his long career at Milan, Maldini won seven Serie A titles, in 1988, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1999, and 2004. At the moment they are eight points behind city rivals Inter, making this weekend's derby a must-win game for the Rossoneri.
Goal.com
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