When I was in high school, FIFA was the most popular video game among my friends. Everybody had a team they used regularly, and that meant lots of Liverpool, United, and Chelsea players. One sad soul picked Tottenham. As an adult I now know I had an issue with conformity and I hadn’t realized that I did not actually like most of the people I hung out with in high school. I ended up picking AC Milan. I was Italian, after all, and they were the most fun team to play with.

This led to trying to watch games. Back then, ESPN had spotty coverage, if at all. Streaming was not what it is today, and so often, the best way I could find to keep up with the team was to read Player Match Ratings on goal.com. They looked like:

That was what I used to read to learn about the team. I followed in the abstract for almost a year, before the rights were with Fox Soccer. Better, but also worse in some ways. At least I could watch a few games.

In 2007, I watched the Champions League Final on a delay, turning off my phone, and avoiding spoilers like Ted Mosby avoiding the score of a hockey game while picking up takeout. One of the happiest moments I can remember.

At this point, I’m in college, and trying to find a way that I connect with an Italian Soccer club from my dorm room in Nashville. I didn’t know any other fans at school, this was one of those interests that I kept to myself, and waited to see if maybe later in life, this would become something, or maybe it wouldn’t; maybe it would die on the vine.

From there, I found a key source to following the team, Meytar’s RossoneriBlog. I started in the comment section. I got into an argument one day with a commenter named Giancarlo, who was the biggest bag of air you could imagine. Hated the guy. Used to argue with him on everything.

After one particularly contentious interaction, Meytar reached out to me and said, you have to be nicer to this guy. Yeah he’s annoying but we have rules. Sure, that’s fair. But also, you write well, would you want to write for the blog?

My first article was on how playing Kevin-Prince Boateng in the 10 had numerous advantages for the style the team was seeking to play. It took me two hours and I once I sent it in to be published I replayed all the things that I COULD have said.

So I wrote again a few weeks later. Then again. Meytar convinced me that I needed to get on Twitter. 2009. From there, I met numerous people who helped me along my journey and deepened my passion. Sometime around 2010, I realized, this is probably less of a phase and more of a long-term decision. I guess I’m in this for real now.

I traveled to Milan around then, as a graduation gift from my parents. I studied abroad in Australia, but this was my first time with a long trip not knowing the language. My Italian was spotty, but enough to get the most basic of tasks done.

Right around this time, a certain manager, Max Allegri was hired by Milan. I now had my own blog, and that became DAI DAI DAI: Max Allegri’s Favorite Blog. I ran that with support, expertise, and guest articles from friends who also had the itch. Dave Lamb and I were working within a pre-match preview and post-match comment cycle for a few years. It felt great.. until four years later it was the same thing.

I grew bored of writing about AC Milan tactics, which was my initial scope. It seemed like such a small portion of the pie. I wrote about bigger topics eventually, and more meta discussions. That felt like the right approach.

Eventually Max was fired after losing to Sassuolo (understandable). My desire to write faded, and the blog went away.

But then, this morning, I read the news: Max is back.

How did we get here? Where do we stand? What can we expect?

It seemed like there was only one option that made sense, if Max is back, the blog is back, 14 years later.

I’m looking forward to answering those questions. It’ll take me a little bit of time to get everything setup, but I’m looking forward to contributing my voice again. If this is up your alley, hop into the comments and share your thoughts. Who knows, it might lead you on a journey of your own.

In the coming days weeks and months, I’ll be sharing my thoughts, opinions and analysis. We’re back. DAI DAI DAI!