Yahoo Sports Bonera explains aims of Milan Futuro and reveals emotions after being named head coach
Daniele Bonera has spoken for the first time since being officially named the head coach of Milan Futuro and he outlined the objectives of the project.
Milan Futuro will be competing in the Serie C this upcoming season, giving youngsters such as Francesco Camarda and Kevin Zeroli consistent playing time against older players to help their development.
Bonera will be the head coach of the team and he already knows quite a few of the players well, having been part of Stefano Pioli’s coaching staff and remaining at the club beyond his exit a few weeks ago.
If you need more information on the U23 team, we recently published a feature about the stars of the team, the rumoured signings to help raise the average age, the management structure and the regulations.
He spoke during an interview with Milan TV about the ambitions and objectives he has as coach of Milan Futuro and what the project intends to achieve, with MilanNews relaying his comments.
What can you tell us about the Milan Futuro project?
“This project, Milan Futuro, was presented to me with the idea of training players and ensuring that these guys grow from a human and obviously footballing point of view and that they are closer to what the first team requires. So this is the main input. Obviously through positive results this path will be more or less simple.”
Do you think there will be initial difficulties?
“We will have some difficulties but I believe we are structured, starting from the top. They are giving me all the means to ensure that this path is as smooth as possible, assuming that we are aware that there will be difficulties, but these must give us strength and motivation.”
What are your initial feelings having been named head coach?
“A lot of stimuli. Obviously a lot of emotion for the one that will see me directly responsible for this new project that, moreover, makes me very proud because I will have a great responsibility: that of making the boys grow and ensuring that they can go to the first team and face a little more prepared, more ready, compared to what the Primavera offered, which is an intermediary league that prepares the youngsters but, in my opinion, they still had a step of difference compared to what is then the need of the first team.”
What are the objectives?
“The objective is to help the boys grow. Certainly when this idea was presented to me I welcomed it with great pride, and I believe it is a fundamental step for a company like ours, so ambitious, because Milan Futuro will be something innovative. There will also be room, I believe in a not too distant future, for other teams to enter this category.”
Do you feel a sense of responsibility?
“It is certainly a great responsibility, but it is something I felt like doing already at the beginning of the season. I had communicated that it would perhaps be my last season as a coach [rather than a head coach] because I felt the desire to deal more directly with the responsibilities.
“It comes at a time, in a situation, that sees me in an area that I know, because I know Milanello well. I hope to be able to transmit to the boys those values that allowed me to stay so long at Milan.”
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Is there an added boost that comes from knowing some players already?
“The added value is that of having experienced these guys who sporadically trained with us and also had the opportunity to debut. To have a relationship with them that is also a little more confidential, to know them perhaps in those facets that a first-team coach perhaps cannot have. I hope that this can be the advantage that I can in a certain sense have with them, and the trust that they can have in me.”
What does Milan mean to you?
“I saw Milan from the outside before arriving, like a dream. When I arrived I understood why a player when he left Milan knew he was leaving something magical. So, without naming names or who left me things, all the coaches I’ve had have left me things, but I’m not just talking about Milan, but I believe that the environment you’re in shapes you in a certain way with values. And I believe that in this Milan is special.”
Will there be synergy with the first team?
“The intention is to have a synergy, a team group that does not stop at the 20-25 players of the first team squad, but that is much larger. So I think the synergy must be there from the beginning, and I think that in this the support of the club, but above all the input of the club, is clear, it is clear to the coach of the first team, to me.
“So we will have to be good at making sure that a new reality integrates with the existing one and consequently the Primavera make sure that the boys are confronted with a category that is something more than the Primavera.”
The goal for this season is…
“I’m a dreamer. The goal is to ensure that the guys who will start with me at the end of the year are in the first team. I think this is my dream but I also think it’s the club’s goal. So the two things go together.”
