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#9 Matteo Darmian
Back in 2000, Matteo Darmian became a key figure in Milan’s youth team set-up when he was just 10 years old. Having spent nine years at the club, it’s fair to say he lived and breathed the Rossoneri way of life enough to consider himself somewhat of an expert.
Although his time there was largely spent outside the confines of the senior set-up, he will certainly have learned a great deal from the experience, and though Manchester United bought an unpolished product from Torino during the summer of 2015, the progress he made at Milan was clearly significant enough to warrant praise from so many quarters.
An interview he had with the Red Devils upon joining underlines precisely how pivotal his long stint with Milan really was: “They helped me grow both as a footballer and as a human being. I consider it a school of life in the sense that they made me grow as a football player and gave everything for me to improve. They used to also ask me about my school grades all the time so they were following me very closely as a human being as well as a sportsman.”
His rapport with Milan will never be as strong as some of the other names on this list, but he is certainly a glowing endorsement of what youthful flair the club can still produce.
