Ismael Bennacer is finally leaving Milan, with the Algerian set to terminate his contract and sign for Qatari side Al Gharafa, according to Fabrizio Romano.
This one has been coming for a long time, and clearing Bennacer off the books matters more for what it frees up than for what it loses. His salary sat among the higher earners in the squad for a player who had drifted completely out of Massimiliano Allegri's plans, and Milan have spent two seasons trying to move him on without success. A contract termination isn't the sale the club once hoped for, but it removes a wage from the ledger and closes a chapter that had gone stale.
Romano's line is that a deal has been "verbally agreed between all parties involved," with Bennacer leaving as a free agent to join Al Gharafa once the contract is torn up.
The fall has been a hard one to watch. Bennacer was central to the 2021-22 Scudetto and to the Champions League run the year after, when he scored the only goal of the quarter-final first-leg win over Napoli at San Siro before injury ended his semi-final against Inter early. The knee ligament problem that followed took something off him that never came back. Loans at Marseille and Dinamo Zagreb followed, and neither turned into a permanent move, which told its own story about where his market had gone.
He arrived from Empoli in 2019 and leaves with 178 appearances for the club, eight goals and 12 assists, having played both as a deep-lying holder and further forward. For a stretch he was one of the best midfielders in Serie A. That version of Bennacer is the one worth remembering, because it's not the one walking out the door.
With Bennacer's wages off the books and the midfield already reshaped, this is Milan tidying up the last of the Allegri-era holdovers rather than losing anything they'll miss on the pitch.