Milan technical director asks Paulo Fonseca for time and reminds… Klopp
Geoffrey Moncada believes in the Portuguese coach’s style of play, recalling Liverpool with the German coach, and downplays Rafael Leão’s unhappy period, now over
Milan technical director Geoffrey Moncada has explained why he signed Paulo Fonseca from Lille to replace Steffano Pioli this summer and revealed details of his day-to-day training routine.
«Paulo has a style of football that we believe Milan should have. We play at San Siro, we must control the game and the ball. We must be solid on these issues. Paulo is a good worker, he has interesting training sessions, working both individually and with the collective. For example, I saw him take four or five midfielders after a normal session and do specific work with just them. It’s only November, but I’m sure that, at the end of the season, we’ll see that many players have made enormous progress with him”, he began by saying, in an extended interview with Milan News.it , asking the Portuguese coach for time.
«The top five in Europe are teams like Manchester City , Liverpool , Bayern , etc. We want to at least get closer to that, but it’s not easy. It took Liverpool eight years to reach this level, because it wasn’t like that before. It took a strategy and a coach [Klopp] with a very precise methodology. We want to do the same with a coach who has clear ideas and can develop the players”, he explained, also commenting on Rafael Leão ‘s start to the season , which wasn’t the best, but which is already raising the bar.
«We work together every day, we support him and now I think Leão is a totally different player. Just look at his performances against Real Madrid , in Cagliari and for the Portuguese national team. These situations can happen, no one is perfect. We have to accept that players have difficult moments and support them like Zlatan Ibrahimovic and I did with Rafa, giving support and constructive criticism. We are a family», he guaranteed, remembering the first time he saw him playing football.
«I remember watching him play for Sporting against Belenenses , I think he was 17 years old. He played as number 10, a supporting striker, but he had a lot of freedom and an interesting profile. He was tall, agile, had fantastic technique and scored a goal with incredible confidence. Obviously, many other scouts also saw him, I certainly wasn’t the first, but when you go to see a youth game in Portugal and see a guy like that… you write down his name”, he revealed, giving other alternatives to the Portuguese, at the time.
«We needed a left winger and there were some very good names… Leão , Donyell Malen , Marcus Thuram , who at the time was at Guingamp. Now they are all playing at a high level [ Dortmund and Inter ], but five years ago that wasn’t a given. At the time, Leão had only been a starter for six months at Lille and we brought him to Milan . We need to give some players time,” he concluded.
