acmilan, do you think that El Shaarawy will get good playing time?
I mean, he is one of the most promising Italian talents, I hope that he won't be wasted.
well, I sure hope so. Generally Milan, and other Italian teams, keep their most promising youth for a while to groom them before sending them to other teams for more playing time - Strasser, Merkel, for instance.
With El Shaarawy, they seem to plan the opposite - enough playing time already, now it's time to groom him into a proper player. I think they fully intend to use him and grow a Kaka/Neymar out of him ... more or less in the way they did with Pato, who was 17/18 when he arrived at Milan.
He may not start too many games but will get quite a bit of playing time, especially if he impresses in his first outing and the summer prep games.