High-profile players arriving at the club as veterans, namely Gianluca Zambrotta and Mark van Bommel, were also released from their contracts following their expiration on 1 July 2012.

Finally, star players Thiago Silva and Zlatan Ibrahimović unexpectedly left Milan during pre-season when the club accepted transfer offers for both from PSG.

[2] However, as Alexandre Pato decided to move back to Brazil in January 2013, the UEFA Euro 2012 star striker Mario Balotelli was signed from Manchester City to front the team's attack.

[3] On the contrary, senior players Massimo Ambrosini and Christian Abbiati, both 35 years of age at the time, had their contracts extended and named captain and vice-captain for the season.

The Rossoneri played their first set of friendlies in Bari on 21, July, 2012 to contest the TIM Trophy consisting of three games, of 45 minutes each, against rivals Internazionale and Juventus.

On Saturday, 28 July 2012, Milan contended in the World Football Challenge, playing a friendly against 2011–12 UEFA Champions League winners, Chelsea, in Miami, Milan looked to be physically dominated by the Blues in the early stages, but became the livelier of the two sides later on, and in the second half, in the 68th minute, after a clinical counter by the Rossoneri, Kevin-Prince Boateng played a perfect through ball to Urby Emanuelson drawing two defenders before passing the ball off to Stephan El Shaarawy.

El Shaarawy's subsequent shot was parried by Petr Čech into Emanuelson's path who struck it into the net for the only goal in the game, and a second win for Milan.

Milan next played Spanish champions Real Madrid in the World Football Challenge at Yankee Stadium in New York on Wednesday, 8 August.

A week later, Milan played their final pre-season game against Juventus in the annual Trofeo Berlusconi at the San Siro on Sunday, 19 August.

[13][14] Last updated: 28 October 2012.Source: Competitions During the summer transfer window, Milan parted ways with four club legends: Gennaro Gattuso, Alessandro Nesta, Clarence Seedorf and Filippo Inzaghi.

The final days of the transfer window saw Milan reinforce the squad with 17-year-old striker M'Baye Niang from Caen, 21-year-old forward Bojan from Roma on loan and combative defensive midfielder Nigel de Jong from English champions Manchester City.

Milan also sold veteran goalkeeper Ferdinando Coppola to Torino and bought youngster Bartosz Salamon from Serie B side Brescia.