Milan eyes double with 18th league title sealed
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AC Milan's 0-0 draw with AS Roma may not have been the attacking feast of football the estimated 10,000 Milan supporters in the Olympic Stadium in Rome wanted, but it was enough to earn the club its 18th league title.
After the match the players celebrated on the pitch in front of the fans and donned celebratory T-shirts, while back in Milan thousands flocked to the city's main square - Piazza del Duomo - to begin celebrating their team's first championship since 2004.
Next up for Massimilliano Allegri's team is the Italian Cup semifinal second leg away to Palermo, with the teams tied at two goals apiece.
"I think that the guys have done so much, they've been fantastic and always accepted my decisions," Allegri said. "The squad demonstrated it was united by everyone coming tonight and 10 of the guys sitting in the stand."
Appropriately enough the title win comes the season owner Silvio Berlusconi celebrated his 25th year in charge and was also the season in which Italy's premier signaled that the club would remain in family hands long after he is gone. His daughter Barbara was added as a 13th member of the club's board of directors in recent weeks.
Berlusconi's daughter has become a regular face in the directors' box at the San Siro and on the club's away trips. Her involvement even became personal when Italian gossip magazines exposed her budding relationship with the club's Brazil striker Alexandre Pato in March.
Older generation
There was certainly optimism in the air at the start of the season with a young new coach in Allegri given his first chance at a big club after cutting his teeth with Cagliari, even if there was some disquiet among the fans that the older generation of players - Massimo Ambrosini, Gennaro Gattuso, Alessandro Nesta and Andrea Pirlo - were still being relied on.
Former Juventus and Inter Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic completed his tour of Italy's big three clubs by joining on loan following a disappointing season with Barcelona. Brazil striker Robinho signed following a mixed time at Manchester City and Ghana international Kevin Prince Boateng arrived on loan from Genoa.
"I came to Milan to win things and that's what we've done," Ibrahimovic said. "I have now won with the three biggest teams in Italy. I've been in Italy for six years and won it all. Now we have to think about only one thing; doing well on Tuesday to reach the final of the Italian Cup."
Yesterday, Napoli fell four points behind second-place Inter Milan after slumping to a 1-2 loss at Lecce in which leading scorer Edinson Cavani was sent off.
Inter meanwhile bounced back from losing its league title to city rival Milan, with a convincing 3-1 win at home to Fiorentina.
At the bottom of the table Brescia was relegated after a 1-2 loss to Catania while elsewhere it was: Bologna 0, Parma 0; Cagliari 0, Cesena 2; and Udinese 2, Lazio 1.
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