Former AC Milan midfielder Antonio Nocerino has claimed that a 'ghost goal' not given against Juventus in 2012 changed the club's entire history.
Milan led the Serie A title race for large parts of the early part of this season before Antonio Conte's Inter side went on an excellent run to end their 10 years without a league title.
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The Rossoneri are now battling it out with Atalanta, Juventus, Napoli and Lazio for one of the final three Champions League spots.
Unless they win the title next season, Milan will go longer than their San Siro city rivals in not winning the title for a decade, and Nocerino believes that's all down to a goal that wasn't given.
In 2011/12, Milan were locked in a title race with the Old Lady and the pair came up against each other in February in Milan.
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Nocerino gave Massimiliano Allegri's the lead and it looked like Sulley Muntari had made it 2-0 when he headed home a second half corner past Gianluigi Buffon.
The Juve keeper scrambled the ball away, but it had gone over the line, and the officials didn't give the goal, in a pre VAR and pre goal line technology era.
Instead of going 2-0 up, Milan went on to concede a late equaliser to Alessandro Matri before going on to lose the title by four points to Conte's team, as he started a sequence of nine titles in-a-row in Turin, before breaking it with Inter.
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Nocerino believes that the goal didn't just change that title race, but also the history of the club.
"It wasn't after the game everyone went mad, it was straight after the goal," the Italian told The Italian Football Podcast.
"It was incredible, it was a goal. Buffon moved behind his goal-line when he clawed the ball.
"This moment changed the future of Milan. With this goal, Milan would have won the Scudetto. The big players - Zlatan and Thiago Silva - wouldn't have left the club that summer.
"The club would have invested more money to win as well going forward. So this ghost goal changed the history of Milan.
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"If Milan had won the Scudetto, Zlatan and Thiago would have stayed, Milan for sure would have won more Scudetti."
Ibra and Silva were sold to PSG that summer, after a 4-2 loss in the Milan derby ended their title hopes on the penultimate weekend of the season, with Giampaolo Pazzini and Francesco Acerbi the main replacements in the transfer window.
Since then the club have only had one top four finish, finishing third the season after, and have never returned to the heights they previously reached.
Who knows what would have happened if Muntari's goal had correctly been counted.
Featured Image Credit: YouTubeTopics: Football, Serie A, AC Milan, Juventus, VAR