Andrea Conti has offered an honest reflection on his time with AC Milan, one that didn’t work out the way either side hoped due to a series of serious injuries.
The defender joined from Atalanta seven years ago along with Franck Kessie as part of a spending spree by the new Chinese ownership, but eventually went on loan to Parma and then to Sampdoria on a permanent deal, where he has just been released from.
Conti spoke during an interview with Gianluca Di Marzio about joining Milan, starting naturally with when the call arrived in the summer of 2017 aid a crazy mercato under Marco Fassone and Massimiliano Mirabelli.
“That summer was not easy for me. Milan was looking for me and I wanted to go because I felt ready, and when a club like that calls you – despite coming from difficult years – it is difficult for a young guy to say no,” he said.
“It was a year in which Milan changed a lot, it was also the first of the new ownership, I could not say what did not work because so many things happened. Perhaps the fact of having changed a lot did not help, then there was more pressure than usual, linked to the large expenses on the market, which we were not able to handle.”
Conti didn’t know it, but the worst part was yet to come as he suffered an injury pretty early on in his time with the Rossoneri, which would turn out to be the first of many.
“I got hurt right away, in September. I still managed to play the first games earning the national team and making my debut, then I got injured and from there it was an ordeal.
“Even though I had recovered a bit in 2020 – I played regularly under Pioli – there were dynamics that led me to leave. However, it was an honour to wear the Rossoneri shirt. Playing at San Siro I made a dream come true.”
The ‘ordeal’ worsened when the wing-back suffered a cruciate ligament injury. He made a full recovery but there were other setbacks, and by his own admission he simply didn’t come back as the same player.
“I remember when they told me the extent of the injury: my world collapsed . I was young and at the peak of my career, there was a lot of talk about me and I had earned a place in the national team.
“Then it all depends on how you manage to get out of it; for me it was still an ordeal because I had continuous problems and I had to have four operations on my knee . It wasn’t easy also because I had to question my future at a football level, it’s not easy to live with these thoughts.”
Conti offered some advice to the players who suffer serious injuries and enter the tunnel of a long recovery process without knowing if they will ever get back to 100%.
“As advice I can tell them to trust the right people and surround themselves with the love of their family, because that is the most important thing in difficult times.
“In my case it was a consequence of things, after the first time the surgery didn’t go well and the rehabilitation wasn’t easy; but I also came out of it quite well, in fact in 2020 I felt good.
“Then I tore my meniscus, and from there it was always a series of problems because I always had to operate on the same knee. It’s clear that after all these problems you can’t go back to the same levels as before.”