Rafael Leao has been forced to miss the first three league games of the season, but one year ago things were very different.
As Corriere della Sera (via MilanNews) report this morning, Leao is working hard to return to full training and thus to Massimiliano Allegri’s disposal as soon as possible. Yesterday, despite the day off granted by the coach, the Portuguese still showed up at Milanello to train alone.
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The paper remarks that the winger seems to be a different player at the start of this season, especially in terms of his attitude. His importance to Allegri’s tactical plans has already been written about extensively and now he is desperate to get out on the field and show it.
What a difference a year makes
Corriere della Sera recall that just a year ago this week, Leao was at the centre of controversy in the infamous cooling break incident at the Stadio Olimpico during Lazio-Milan.
Instead of joining the rest of the team for a chat after Milan’s equaliser, Leao and Theo Hernandez stayed on the other side of the pitch, drinking from water battles and watching from afar. Some interpreted it as a deliberate ploy to ignore Paulo Fonseca’s instructions.
The full-back had a different explanation, but either way that 12 months feels like a lifetime ago. Now, Rafael Leao is hoping to show that he can be a leader of a Milan side in a new era under Allegri.
That’s how real coach brings the best of the players. Without being asked to, he showed up for a training session. Proud of Leao really. Hopefully he will be able to play without the injuries for the rest of the season.
All it took was getting Theo out of here. He was a bad influence on Leao and others.
Bring in two irrelevant coaches in one season get irrelevant results. Bring in a coach who commands respect and get a different attitude. It’s not rocket science.
That whole thing imo was just media stirring stuff up. If you’re a coach just friggin tell the players to come over. It’s not that hard, it’s a break in play and if then they don’t come over then yes there was a clear cut rebellion. Perhaps bench them the next set of games,.right?! The obvious next step, right? But they weren’t benched..soo…🤷♂️ there was never an issue. But nah, the media ran with this nonsense and people ate it up.
When I saw this live, first thing I thought was they’re talking offensive strategy. They just came on, literally just got instructions a minute ago. The only thing I thought at the time that sowed a seed of doubt was a change in strategy (to protect the draw …??) but even then one would think they’d gotten that logic map for game permutations before they went on the field. It was only until I read the “issue” in articles that I realized they needed to cure the boredom during the ensuing international break and divide the team.
I like how what’s lost in all this is that without those two coming on and combining to score, we were heading for a loss. Maybe I’m sympathetic to the player and I believe they didn’t do this with mal-intent. There are other things that happened in the season that was more clear cut for Leao and moreso Theo (talking to Dodo mid game comes to mind). But you so much as breathe air in the wrong way the media gonna spin it. And this one, was spun and stuck…even a year on. At least imo