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00:00Welcome to the press conference on the eve of the match against Genoa with Mr. Fonseca.
00:12There were lots of comments after your comments after the Milan Red Star match and you've
00:20had a few days with the players since that match.
00:22Have they been important days to prepare to get the team spirit going?
00:28Yes, for me it was, after the match against the Red Star, it would have been easy to speak
00:38about only the victory or the four victories in a row in the Champions League.
00:48But tomorrow AC Milan are celebrating 125 years of life.
00:54We have to be worthy of that history and we weren't worthy against the Red Star.
01:01I don't think our attitude was worthy of that history, of the history of this club, a club
01:07that's made history in football.
01:09And I said it, I said it to the team, I told the team what I thought, as I always do.
01:16Today I've spoken with the players that I wanted to speak to and for me, and we're ready,
01:24in my view we're ready.
01:26Tomorrow we're ready to have a good, to play, to have an evening worthy of this club's history.
01:39Could you tell us who you've spoken to, not necessarily names, we know you've spoken to
01:44Teo Hernandez, but can you tell us anything that you said, or if you had to speak to anyone
01:50in particular or about any particular subjects?
01:54And no, I've got nothing to add to what I said.
02:04I'm not going to speak here, I'm not going to say names here, I've spoken to some players,
02:13I told them what I think, as I always do, I looked them in the eye and that's, and we
02:21go ahead, we move forward, we have to keep going.
02:24My second question is, what's the atmosphere like in the dressing room?
02:31There were lots of stories on social media and there was comments from Davide Calabria.
02:38Was he, was the captain in this group of the people you spoke to, and what's the atmosphere
02:44like?
02:45Have you spoken to Davide Calabria on his own or in the group?
02:51After the match, we were in the dressing room, and I think, and I think we've all got the
03:02same feeling, and that was very positive.
03:08That's the first step to understand what has happened, what happened, and afterwards
03:13we spoke and the team worked hard, has worked hard over the last few days.
03:18The atmosphere is good, as it has always been.
03:24We're a family and we resolve our problems privately within the dressing room, and that's
03:30what we did.
03:34You said that we have to be worthy of the height of Milan's 125th anniversary party.
03:46What you said after the match about the players, was that shared by the staff and the directors.
03:56I will respond.
04:00Tomorrow the team will play the best team that I think is suitable to win the match.
04:08You have to wait for tomorrow, because I'm not ready to tell you anything about my formation,
04:12who is playing.
04:15Afterwards, you know that we had a party yesterday for the youth players, and I listened, and
04:32I've always felt the support of the club.
04:45Your choice to speak out publicly about the team, to me it was brave.
04:50Managers, coaches very rarely do it.
04:52Why did you do it, and does it mean you had already spoken to the players in the dressing
04:59room and told them what you didn't like, and what made you decide to do it publicly?
05:06I always tell the truth, that's the first thing.
05:12It's hard to hide what I feel after matches.
05:19I think I always have to be honest, I should always be honest, and that was what I felt
05:28after the match against Red Star, and afterwards I think sometimes we have to give strong messages,
05:36important messages, and we have to pass them on.
05:40I felt the necessity to pass that message on.
05:44You obviously are not in the dressing room, you can't know everything, but I felt the
05:50necessity to pass the message on like this.
05:57This threat, I will get the youth team to play, does that mean that there will be some
06:02players in the youth team tomorrow playing?
06:09The Milan Futuro project is an important project to mean that we have more players
06:17available for the first team, players from the youth team who are ready and prepared
06:21to play for the first team.
06:23We're always working from the first day with the players from Milan Futuro, we're working
06:28for this, towards this.
06:31What I can say is tomorrow there will be someone interesting on the pitch.
06:45There have been a few incidents this year, problems awaited Fiorentina, Rafael and Teo
06:51Hernandez during a drinks break, did you expect such difficulties in your relationship with
06:58some of the senior players?
07:00Yes, at this level it's normal, it's completely normal, perfectly normal, these situations.
07:17I look for solutions to resolve the situation, but it's a thing that I know about.
07:27I never ignore a problem, I always confront the problem, I don't hide and I don't ignore
07:34and close my eyes to problems.
07:37If there are problems, I'm ready to resolve them.
07:44Because it's normal in every team, in every family, we have problems, we're a family and
07:54it's normal that there are problems.
08:06You said, we appreciate that you said, I'm always honest after matches and you don't
08:12hide, after the match against Atalanta when you had a discussion with the referees, you
08:22said, talking about some of the players you disagreed with, do you not worry that from
08:29the outside this could be seen as weakness?
08:32No, I'm not worried about that, honestly I'm not worried about that.
08:39What the other people say or think about me doesn't bother me, if I were worried about
08:45that it would be difficult to do this job, because everyone thinks differently, everyone's
08:55got an opinion, but I'm here, I know how the team is feeling, I know what mood the team
09:04are in, I know the players, I see them every day, how they're working and training, that's
09:13it.
09:14And I don't have time to think and worry about what other people think of me, no.
09:26Tomorrow maybe Milan's, or the most impressive striker in history, Marco Van Basten, will
09:33be at the stadium tomorrow, it's an important match.
09:36How important for you would it be if Francesco Camarda scores his first goal in the first
09:41game in front of Van Basten?
09:44That's a good question, that's a good question.
09:48I think it's important to say something.
09:56We have to let Francesco Camarda develop, we have to leave him, take off the pressure
10:04and expectations.
10:08He's a young player, let's not create too much pressure on Francesco Camarda's shoulders.
10:18He's young, he's balanced at the moment, he's composed, he's balanced.
10:24Let's let him play, let's let him stay relaxed, composed.
10:31I have to always think about how I use Francesco Camarda.
10:37These young players have to play at the right time, they have to come on at the right moment.
10:45We shouldn't create too much pressure on a young player like Francesco Camarda, who has
10:51to keep developing.
10:54He shouldn't feel the weight or the obligation to be decisive in matches.
11:02Let him have his natural path, his natural journey.
11:15A large amount of the fans respected and appreciated your comments after the match against Red
11:22Star.
11:23But after that, I want to know if, football-wise, only football-wise, what can you do if after
11:36five months the team are making the same mistakes in defence, how do you work on repeated errors
11:49and how can you change things in defence?
12:01The match against Red Star, that's what you're talking about, yes, against Stella Rossa,
12:09I didn't speak about tactics or technical things, as I said at the end of the match.
12:15The problem wasn't tactical or technical.
12:20For me, the only problem was the attitude and the approach.
12:29And this influences the other elements, obviously, but it wasn't a defensive problem.
12:39They didn't create, they created hardly anything, Red Star.
12:45I think the team, defensively, has improved.
12:55I don't think it was a tactical problem.
13:04Has it ever happened to you, something similar in your career, or is this situation, this
13:12team, have you, is it the first time you've found a team a bit arrogant?
13:18Oh, yes.
13:23In my career, it's happened before.
13:29I think it has to every head coach, I'm sure it's happened, this situation.
13:35I don't consider this abnormal, I think it is normal and we have to do what we believe
13:43to resolve the situation.
13:47Here, maybe the situation, in some specifics, is different to other clubs that I've worked
13:57at in the past, because it's different players and it's a different club, different time
14:03for the club.
14:05These things can influence the situation, but I've had situations like this.
14:26When you took this job in the summer, in charge of a club as big as Milan, did you think you
14:32would have these kind of situations, problems?
14:37Yes.
14:38You never felt it was unusual.
14:49At this level, if you think that life is all roses, all flowers, it's not true.
15:04At this level, there are always situations like this, because the status and the conditions
15:20and the players, it's like this at all the big clubs.
15:28There is no big club that doesn't have something like this situation.
15:32I expected it.
15:36Obviously, it's just like this at big clubs.
15:47In your reconstruction of the situation, I don't understand if the club knew what you had said
15:55on Wednesday after about the players, or if the directors had said something
16:00to the team as well.
16:04If the directors had come here to talk to the team, like a meeting?
16:09No, no, they didn't do that.
16:12They didn't need to.
16:14Did they know what you said?
16:16Did they agree with what you said?
16:21I spoke to the team and then I spoke to the club.
16:24I told them as is normal.
16:26I talked to them about what was happening around the team.
16:30What I said to the team.
16:32It's normal, normality.
16:38After four months and this morning, we're talking about your outburst after the match.
16:45The team, it's a good team.
16:47There are good players.
16:49It seems like a good squad that could fight for the Scudetto, the title.
16:55What do you think the team lack?
16:57What's missing?
17:00The attitude?
17:05I've already had this discussion, but we can do it again.
17:12I've got all the time you want, all the time you need.
17:16We have...
17:19They brought me here to change things around and a way of playing.
17:24I came here with 15 players.
17:25We went to America with 15 players, lots of youngsters.
17:41And some of the players that went were not the players that were important,
17:45influential last season.
17:49The most important players were playing with their national teams.
17:52The preseason, we trained in preseason.
17:59We did things well and it went well.
18:03But not with the players who are on international duty.
18:09They arrived eight days before the first match.
18:15The first league match, eight days before.
18:22We can't change everything in eight days.
18:26We changed a lot.
18:27I'm not saying it's worse or better, but it's...
18:35After this, it's been difficult to train because we only had three days of training.
18:46The steps we want to take need a bit longer and a bit more time.
18:52But for me, we've already changed things.
18:58Things that I believe are important, we've changed them.
19:01And we've had some...
19:02We've played some good matches, good performances.
19:05We haven't had the results domestically that we wanted, but we've had some good matches.
19:13And I think if we analyse lots of tactical things
19:21between the beginning of the season and now, there's progress.
19:25The problem for me is mental, and that's what I said.
19:35Sometimes it feels like a roller coaster, ups and downs.
19:38We had matches like against Empoli, Sassuolo, in which the team played very well, we're on a high.
19:48Also against Atalanta, we did good things.
19:59Real Madrid created better chances against Atalanta than they did against us.
20:07But we've done good things.
20:08And then, in the Champions League, we haven't had the mental ambition to continue growing
20:22because we haven't had the right attitude to continue to grow.
20:26And then the team, the team dropped, the performances dropped down a level.
20:33It's not because the team aren't playing properly.
20:39It's the way of seeing and viewing matches.
20:44It's the attitude.
20:51When the team thinks a match is easy because it's Red Star and we're at home,
20:59these are when the problems arrive.
21:01It's presumptuous arrogance, maybe, in certain matches.
21:11This is the problem.
21:13This is the problem.
21:20Regarding this attitude problem, is there a need to find new leaders?
21:28I just want to say something.
21:31I, I'm going back to the time that I wasn't here, when I wasn't here.
21:41Last 10 matches of last season, I watched and I listened to what people said and it was the same.
21:47It was the same.
21:51This hasn't changed.
21:55I can't say it's just this season, this thing.
21:58I heard people say this last season.
22:02People spoke about the same thing, the attitude, last season.
22:07It's not recent.
22:14Maybe you need to create some new leaders.
22:18Or who will be the captain tomorrow?
22:21Raphael, Mike Magnon?
22:25That's an intelligent way to get some information.
22:28Very good.
22:31Yeah, you're good inside the penalty area.
22:40It's difficult to imagine that Teo Hernandez will be captain tomorrow.
22:47You're talking about an attitude problem.
22:51Does the captain have to be a symbol of the team, an example of what the team should be?
22:56You can't give it to someone who is someone who you were upset with on Wednesday.
23:05My opinion,
23:12when I arrived here, Milan had had three captains.
23:26Imagine,
23:35if I changed the captain, imagine what would happen.
23:39You guys would kill me.
23:41You would kill me because I changed the captain.
23:46You gave it to him who's not got the personality or him.
23:50I've decided to continue with three captains that we have got.
23:56If you agree, that's a different matter.
23:58But I respect the hierarchy of the team and I will continue to respect it
24:09until I decide that I have to change it.
24:13I don't know.
24:16It's possible.
24:16We've learned to get to know you and we think you're a great manager and a very sincere person.
24:30Maybe I'm too sincere.
24:32Well, it's a good characteristic to be sincere.
24:35After the match against Atalanta, the defeat, did your team exit the race for the Scudetto
24:42or do you still believe in the race for the Scudetto?
24:46Or are you thinking something else in me, something bigger?
24:56I want to be honest, as ever, I think that it's...
25:05In me, inside, I still believe.
25:08I still believe.
25:09What else can I say?
25:10I still believe.
25:15It's not easy, but I still believe.
25:26First thing I want to ask, if Milan get through to the next phase of the Champions League
25:33and I want to also...
25:38You said the performance against Red Star was only down to an attitude,
25:44the attitude of the players, and you're not naming names,
25:49but Chukwueze came on, Tami Abraham came on,
25:57Moussa has always given balance, Fofana and Tijani Reinders are playing well.
26:03There's only two players left.
26:05The attitude that might not be the one that pleased you, is it enough?
26:13Also one player.
26:17You've spoken about the Scudetto and the Champions League qualification
26:36over winning the Scudetto at the end of the season.
26:39I'm just thinking about tomorrow's match.
26:44I don't want to think about anything else.
26:46I am just focused on tomorrow's match.
26:50We're in good condition, we're doing well in the Champions League,
26:53but we want to do the same domestically.
26:58I'm just thinking about the match tomorrow.
27:04You've spoken about the mental aspect,
27:08but I always like to ask about tactics.
27:10The last three goals conceded against Atalanta and Red Star
27:17The modern defenders, not just at Milan, when there's a cross,
27:22they look at the ball, they never look at their opponent.
27:25Milan have conceded goals in that way.
27:29Do you think it's the wrong positioning?
27:32And by the way, this is not just a problem for Milan.
27:36Regarding Red Star,
27:39one of their players was given too much space in front of Milan's defence.
27:47What do you think?
27:50I don't agree.
27:51I'll tell you why.
27:55Against a match with Cagliari, we did have that problem.
28:03Not defending situations, not defending crosses well.
28:09Not watching the attacker, but looking at the ball.
28:16Being in the wrong body shape, we did have that problem.
28:20But afterwards, I don't think it's happened again.
28:29We have improved a lot.
28:38The match against Atalanta, we didn't have problems of that style.
28:45We had one goal.
28:54We had one goal, a player who was on top of Teo Hernandez,
29:00that some parts of the world might not have been given.
29:03And we had a problem from a corner.
29:15I don't think it's a real defensive problem.
29:20Against Red Star, we defended well.
29:26In the area, we defended well.
29:28Moussa lost the ball, and the guy shot from a distance.
29:33It's not a specific defensive problem.
29:38It's not a defending problem.
29:43I think our defenders have made a lot of progress.
29:47You spoke about giving a young player a chance tomorrow against Genoa.
29:51Can I ask you about Alejandro Jimenez, who plays left or right as a full-back?
29:56How do you consider Alejandro Jimenez?
29:59And also, I'd like to ask how you feel.
30:02How are you?
30:03I'm well. I'm always well.
30:05I'm always well.
30:07I'm always well.
30:08I'm always well.
30:09I'm always well.
30:10I'm always well.
30:11I'm always well.
30:12I'm always well.
30:13I'm always well.
30:15I'm always well.
30:16And Jimenez?
30:23He's well.
30:25He's well.
30:30You know, Jimenez can play left-back, right-back, right-wing, left-wing.
30:41He's got this multifunctionality, which is good.
30:46Your way of managing Rafa Leao has worked because Rafa Leao is playing well now.
30:59Can you do that?
31:00Can you do that style?
31:01Have that style of managing with other players without naming anyone?
31:07Every player has got his personality, his particular characteristics.
31:16Every player is different.
31:20You need different strategies, you need different modes of managing them.
31:26It's not because Leao isn't…
31:35Rafa Leao isn't…
31:36The fact that Rafa Leao is doing well doesn't mean I have to use the same approach with him
31:42that I can do the same thing with other players.
31:46My horse coach prepares special training for special horses.
31:59He's been preparing it for a month and a half.
32:02Can you tell us when we will see your Milan?
32:07Mentally, physically, tactically and technically.
32:12Is there a date in your mind when you can say this will be my Milan?
32:18Will it be January or February?
32:22Have you given yourself a date when we will be able to enjoy your Milan?
32:29I've already seen a Milan that I like.
32:31I've already seen it in different matches, various matches.
32:36I've already seen it.
32:37What we need it to be is constant, consistent, consistent.
32:43When are we going to see this team?
32:47I'm not a magician.
32:52I can't tell you.
32:53I don't know.
32:53I'm not a magician.
33:00It's like the roller coaster.
33:01Tomorrow will be amazing.
33:03Maybe the next day we won't.
33:05What I want is to have a consistent team.
33:17That's a question of attitude.
33:21Because after that you can make mistakes technically, tactically.
33:25You can get things wrong.
33:27What I find difficult is to understand the team.
33:33Is to understand this inconsistency, the attitude, the changing attitude of the team.
33:43Can you resolve it?
33:45Yes, yes.
33:48But not like horses.
33:49Not like horses.
33:51But I think we can.
33:56I'm sure we can.
34:03Because you develop things, you achieve things with life, with living, with experience.
34:14And it's like that.
34:16Thank you very much for watching Mr. Fonseca's press conference.