Mike Maignan will stay as Milan's captain and starting goalkeeper next season, with Ruben Amorim making the Frenchman a central figure in his project, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport.
Maignan spent most of last season in contract limbo, close to leaving on a free, and there was a stretch where his future at Milanello looked genuinely uncertain. That's now settled. His contract runs until 2031, Adrien Rabiot's until 2028, and the club has no interest in listening to offers for either. When your two best performers from a bad season are locked in long-term, you build around them rather than around them leaving.
Amorim's stance tracks with that. Maignan was reportedly the first player the Portuguese coach phoned after taking the job, a call that goes beyond the standard courtesy to the captain. Rabiot sits in the same bracket: a starter Amorim wants at the core of the midfield.
The pair also got a nod from Zlatan Ibrahimovic this week. DAZN cameras caught the Swede, still acting as an advisor to Gerry Cardinale, speaking to Maignan and Rabiot in the tunnel in Dallas after France's semi-final defeat to Spain. A message of solidarity after a World Cup final slipped away.
France play England in the third-place match on Saturday, after which both players get three weeks off before reporting back to Milanello. They'll be the last of the squad to rejoin the group given the tour of Australia and Indonesia, but they are, per the Gazzetta, considered untouchable on and off the pitch.
The bigger picture is the target Cardinale has set. Twelve months ago the brief was to get back into the top four. That's been ripped up. The goal now is the second star, a nineteenth Scudetto to close the gap on Inter, who moved to 21 last season. The 2025 Supercoppa is the only trophy of the Cardinale era so far, and the American wants a proper one in what is effectively his first full season steering the club himself.
Keeping Maignan is step one of that plan. A goalkeeper worth roughly €25-30m on the open market, tied down to 2031 on the captain's armband, is exactly the kind of foundation a title challenge is built on rather than sold from.