Yahoo Sports GdS: Summer confusion, penalty mutiny and public spats – Milan’s chaotic season so far
AC Milan are only around halfway through their 2024-25 season, and yet there has already been enough drama to fill several normal campaigns.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport write, Milan are usually headline news even when things are going well, but this season they have surpassed themselves when it comes to newsworthy events.
Summer confusion
The debacle actually began before a ball was kicked, when Milan fans protested at the Julen Lopetegui links. The management turned to Paulo Fonseca, a figure not quite as divisive but not as uniting as Antonio Conte or Thiago Motta.
Then, also during the summer, Milan renewed Luka Jovic’s deal and gave him the No.9 shirt before openly trying to ship him off late I the window. Fonseca also stated that he liked Alexis Saelemaekers, yet the directors sacrificed him to get Tammy Abraham on loan.
Fonseca perhaps knew that he was arriving and would not have full powers, but he was reminded of it. The coach said that the market was closed in his eyes during August, then Zlatan Ibrahimovic responded. “The coach is the coach, the club does the rest. We don’t need any more purchases, but the market closes when I say it closes,” he said.
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Friction with Fonseca
Speaking of comments that raised eyebrows in the media, Yunus Musah admitted after the Parma game that he and his team-mates ‘didn’t know whether to press high or drop in deep’. It was the first open sign that Fonseca might not be getting his message across.
After that game, Fonseca left Theo Hernandez and Leao out of the starting eleven against Lazio. It is a very strong choice, and when he brought both on they each stayed on the other side of the field during the cooling break, far from the rest of the team that the coach was speaking to.
Then there was the Fiorentina saga. Milan got two penalties in Florence and it was confirmed after the game that Christian Pulisic should have taken both, but Theo took the first from him, then for the second Fikayo Tomori passed it to Tammy Abraham. The worst bit? Both missed.
After the defeat against Atalanta in Bergamo, Fonseca criticised the referee: “The way the referee conducted the match against Milan is evident… Every week something happens to our disadvantage. It is a lack of respect for us.” The president Scaroni’s reply went against him: “I never give an opinion on the referees’ decisions. The referees are always right by definition.”
The Fonseca-Leao tug of war became a weekly headline, to which the ex-Lille coach said: “Maybe it’s strange for you not to see him, but this must be normal. It’s not normal to see Leao on the bench, but it is normal for me when I say that the team is more important.” He would add: “I don’t give a f*** about the players’ names.”
New era, same incidents
After the 1-1 with Roma on December 29, the club decided to fire Fonseca. It was a decision that had already been made yet the coach was sent to do the post-match press conference, unaware of his fate. During the presentation of Conceicao, Zlatan said: “The decision to fire him came after the match, it was our mistake to have sent him to speak, we apologise to him.”
When Conceiçao arrived, he immediately pointed out some shortcomings in character and approach to work: “Theo and Leao are the same as all the others, in terms of how I manage the dressing room. It depends on what they do every day in training. They have to do their best, which maybe isn’t the best in their opinion.”
He would added: “The players aren’t children but men, inside the dressing room they have to take on the responsibilities too. Many players are already fathers but then they arrive on the pitch and they are kids who need someone to get into their heads?… The players are too pampered, and so am I. It’s a job, not a hobby.”
Finally, we come to the most recent game and the clash between Conceiçao and Calabria at the end. The victory in injury time over Parma provided an adrenaline rush, but the coach went for the full-back having been unhappy with his tantrum after being substituted. Luckily, the players and staff separated them immediately, but it was more ammunition for the media.
