Ivan Gazidis to @AP: “Milan? It’s ludicrous. You’re totally outmatched, especially with the Milan legends. They’re just so good looking and stylish.” https://apnews.com/article/europe-italy-milan-only-on-ap-serie-a-4522adbce51aace4ad5b31e83e2abef6

Gazidis: “There is a style to this team and the city. Although the club has been going through a tough time in recent years ... this club resonates, and it just needs a little bit of love and care.”

Gazidis: “It’s dangerous to think you’ve cracked the code, we certainly haven’t. We’re in a good moment now, but there will be difficult moments.”

Gazidis: “We inherited quite a challenging situation. It’s obviously knocked football very hard. I dread to think what this crisis would have meant for football had it struck before financial fair play.”

Gazidis: “I think the impact has been not as dramatic as it could have been, but it’s dramatic.”

Gazidis: “A lot of football is driven by self-protection because there is so much insecurity in the game,” said the former deputy commissioner of Major League Soccer. “There will be bumps.”

Gazidis: “We are seeing young players with personality, with energy, with commitment and with character driving the team forward.”

Gazidis: “Zlatan is a force of nature. It can be one of his biggest accomplishments in his career. I think he’s approached it with incredible passion and seriousness.”

Gazidis: “It’s a very different circumstance to Arsenal. We had a legend in Arsene Wenger who was not just the coach but the sporting director. Every technical decision, every decision on a player was made by him.”

Gazidis: “He [Wenger] had so much influence and deserved to. This is not a complaint, it’s just a very different environment and a different challenge.”

Gazidis: “We are trying really to build a new sports model and we knew we would make mistakes. We wanted to make the club more efficient financially while increasing the performances on the field which everybody says basically can’t be done.”

Gazidis: “The basic mantra in football is you have to spend more money if you’re going to be successful.”

Gazidis: “Every day, people are vilified and attacked if they’re not spending more and more. There are some winners in that environment and there are many, many losers. I just don’t think that’s healthy for football.”

Gazidis: “I would much rather see a stable, self-sustaining environment for the game where the competition on the field is every bit as ferocious and as exciting and more and more exciting than it’s ever been.”

Gazidis: “However, we don’t have the same kind of destructive pressure to spend, spend, spend that seems to be such a relentless and ultimately futile demand.”

Gazidis: “People don’t see the passion that you put in. It makes you seem, from an outside perspective, as if you don’t care. Nothing could be further from the truth. The challenge is you care so much that it can lead you to make bad decisions.”