Gianluca Di Marzio has given some back story on AC Milan’s pursuit of a new head coach during the summer and the eventual decision to land on Paulo Fonseca.
It was announced before the final game of the 2023-24 season that Stefano Pioli would be leaving his position as manager after almost five years in charge, and the search to find his successor then began with numerous candidates linked.
Julen Lopetegui seemed very close to arriving but the fan reaction was that strong that the management seemed to perform a U-turn and he ended up at West Ham. Then, Paulo Fonseca became the main candidate and he eventually arrived having left Lille after two years.
Di Marzio spoke to Sky and he offered some of the background on how Giorgio Furlani, Geoffrey Moncada, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Gerry Cardinale settled on Fonseca, a name that certainly didn’t unite the fans in terms of being a statement of ambition.
“Many names have been mentioned, even though, in the internal process, the names were Lopetegui and Fonseca,” he said.
“The first was Lopetegui, then for a whole series of reasons, including the negative reaction of the fans on social media, even if I can say that it was for this reason that Milan said no to Lopetegui…”
The journalist said: “I’ll interrupt you: Allegri, Sarri, De Zerbi, Tuchel were available…”
Di Marzio added: “They were evaluated, but never contacted. None of them ever spoke to Milan or Milan presented them with the project.”