Fonseca sacked by Milan: his season, why the farewell after 200 days

Paulo Fonseca will no longer coach Milan: his reign lasted just 200 days. Yes, but how did it happen? When and how did Milan lose? It was a six-month long process but there was an acceleration recently, with the defeat against Bergamo and the draw with Genoa. And then this morning, in the technical meeting, with high tension with the team first and then the managers. Fonseca fought, was consistent with his ideas and faced all the problems he thought he had to face. The tactical choices, Leao, the attitudes, Theo: always straight, frontal, without mincing words. In recent months, however, he has had friction with many and in the end also with his managers: mutual trust has ended. The Milan that Fonseca had in mind almost never materialised. Of course, it had great peaks – the derby, Real Madrid – and in those peaks the coach made ample contribution: Morata as an attacking midfielder against Inzaghi, more than anything, was a winning and original idea. However, his Milan was an intermittent light, brilliant on some special evenings but too often in the dark.

THE PROBLEM: THE HEAD

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“The attitude,” Fonseca always replied when asked about the team’s problems. The diagnosis is trivially correct. His Milan have never had the fire of those who want to win matches and lost points straight away, due to many individual errors. More importantly, they lost them to inferior teams, Parma, Cagliari and Genoa above all. The matches, when you watch them again, aren’t very similar. In Parma, terrible approach from Leao and especially Theo, defensive gaps, physical collapse. In Rome against Lazio, great difficulty defending in transition. In Florence, an assorted madness of penalties and defensive errors. With Napoli, too many absences. With Juve and Genoa, offensive paucity. In common, the origin of the problems: the head, much more than the legs. This is Milan, a team that is never cynical, never bad, and for this reason Conte’s idea was intriguing in the summer: he seemed the most suitable man to restore strong rules and clear principles. Conceiçao, who has the same reputation as tough, is going in that direction.

THEO AND LEAO

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However, Fonseca was not weak. He certainly looked responsible in some games. The first ones, of course, but even more so a Milan-Juve faced with Musah as a right winger in attack, despite Thiago Motta wanting to defend, defend, just defend the 0-0. Other times the coach was the victim of the team’s limitations, which lacked one, two, even three leaders capable of calling their teammates back to their duties. Fonseca can’t say he hasn’t tried. He sent Leao to the bench (several times) and Theo against Genoa and Verona, he spoke clearly and when he didn’t speak clearly he made it clear what was wrong with him. The fans liked him for his sincerity but in private, at Milanello, he wasn’t able to get into the players’ heads.

DIFFERENT PROBLEMS

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The club evidently didn’t see a tomorrow in this exhausted team, without leaders and without ideas. Fonseca recently underlined the progress, he said “we no longer concede goals like those of Cagliari” and yes, he is right in that. However, Milan jumped from one problem to another: they chased one away, another knocked on the door. The match against Genoa was offensively desolate. The one in Verona, sad. Milan struggled with two teams that will survive perhaps, who knows, between April and May. Roma did the rest. Pulisic’s injury, which evidently had an impact, cannot explain everything: for the club it was perhaps a mitigating factor, not an alibi. So it’s clear: Fonseca lost Milan step by step, as the gap to the leaders widened.

THE BUDGET

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His six months were hard, intense, more complex than the two years at Roma… and it all says because Roma, as a stress test, is second to few. Fonseca had adrenaline rushes, he won at the Bernabeu but he had to fight with everyone – the players, at the beginning the fans, perhaps the press – and often he must have felt alone. He played a derby knowing that a defeat, and perhaps even a draw, would lead him to the final handshake: thanks, goodbye, good luck. From there he felt a shock but probably never felt at ease. So let’s go back for a moment, to the first press conference. It was July 8th, Fonseca was talking about dominant football, ideas, victories. He said he wanted to build “a courageous, offensive, dominant, reactive team, which doesn’t leave the opponents thinking, with a strong identity”. He hasn’t succeeded in five and a half months – the players haven’t helped him – and no one will give him any. others. Not here at least, not now.