Conceiçao has sewn him a new tactical outfit, Rafa makes a lot of mistakes but believes in new solutions: “If I can be more central, I play even better”
After all, if you think about it, they proceed together arm in arm, as if they had the same biorhythm. Beautiful image, decidedly less practical effects. Milan and Leao have taken their place on that tandem for some time now. You observe them, you try to scrutinize them closely, you try to understand when the turning point has truly arrived, but it seems like an impracticable undertaking. When the pedaling becomes fluid and the speed increases, the chain comes off. It’s becoming a nightmare because it happens to the team and to the player who is the most talented on that team. Just take the evenings in Madrid and Riyadh, and then observe the ones with Cagliari. A diabolical script. But if Milan is a team, and as such subject to cycles based on the composition of the squad, Leao is an individual and then the matter is different. Because then, in the end, we always find ourselves saying the same things, asking ourselves the same question: when will we be able to find continuity? Adding another, after tonight’s match: when will he understand the best way to adapt his football proposal into a match in which the legs don’t turn like in the previous one?
numbers
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Leao, when he feels attacked by the outside world, is probably unable to decipher one thing: no one asks him for fifty games as a phenomenon per season, but simply to find the best way to put himself at the service of the team on the days when his muscles are less lively. There are a couple of figures from his performance against Cagliari that make you think. The first is the number of crosses: eight, no one has made more. The problem is that only one was successful. His was a more or less infinite series of balls thrown in the middle, partly observing the placement of his teammates, partly simply hoping that something would happen. The other figure is even more painful and concerns the turnovers: there are 19, even in this case none of his teammates did worse. In short, a no evening after the totally yes evening in Riad. As with Pioli and Fonseca, now it’s up to Conceiçao to try to squeeze the best out of Rafa and, apart from the missed pass in this match, the journey has still started in the best possible way. Also evident is the attempt – already started by Fonseca – to ask Leao for a different tactical performance. Moving to the center, perhaps even to the right, however abandoning the obviousness of the left lane where his movements have been known for some time. With Cagliari we even saw him in the role of advanced director, in place of Reijnders to understand each other, to look for game solutions, openings for maneuver. To look for those verticalizations that are the sourdough of Conceiçao’s game.
freedom
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Sergio eventually changed it. It was minute number 88, he brought in a 21-year-old from Milan Futuro in his place. Not as a punishment, but because the message is always valid and applies to everyone: there are no untouchables, and Rafa learned this the hard way throughout the season. When he left the field there were a few whistles, but nothing comparable to other bad precedents. “I don’t have any problems, I play where the coach puts me and I just want to help the team win – Rafa said at the end of the match -. The coach leaves me free, then there’s what I feel on the pitch. If I look at Fofana in half I cut in, otherwise I stay out. Then I have to understand where to go and where not. If I can be more central even better, because I’m closer to the goal. In my opinion we deserved another result in the end. What did Conceiçao bring? Mentality, the desire to always be in the opponent’s half of the field, never give up. That’s what we’re trying to do in every game. He’s only been here for a short time but he’s already put his ideas into action.”
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