There was a lot of anticipation ahead of AC Milan’s first competitive game under Paulo Fonseca against Torino on Saturday, but it would be fair to say that the lightning was bottled and saved for the very end.
Milan had cultivated the ‘American dream’ by beating the Premier League winners Manchester City, the champions of Europe Real Madrid and their El Clasico rivals Barcelona during their preseason tour.
They looked pretty good in those three games despite a number of notable absentees, with some clear signs on display that Fonseca’s philosophy was in the process of being assimilated, especially by some of the younger players.
If the wins in the USA set the table, the 3-1 Silvio Berlusconi Trophy victory against Monza four days before the season opener laid down the cutlery. Things were building to a crescendo, and fans were ready to feast. However, things didn’t quite go to plan.
A punch in the face
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John all the way back in 1978 sang about ‘summer dreams, ripped at the seams’. It was on a summer night in 2024 that Milan came crashing back down to earth with a bang, as Paolo Vanoli’s Torino landed the first blows to rock the Rossoneri.
After a good start to the game and some half-chances missed, the away side went ahead through rather fortuitous circumstances when a Raoul Bellanova header crashed off the far post and Malick Thiaw somehow controlled the ball over the line with his first touch rather than clearing it.
There was nearly a reprieve for the German defender as goal-line technology didn’t work straight away, but there were zero doubts about the legitimacy of the second goal that the Granata scored on the night when Duvan Zapata crashed in a close range header having been given the freedom of Milano.
All of a sudden, the life had been sucked out of the over 70,000 fans at San Siro, their preseason enthusiasm quickly turning into a quite negative energy that saw stray passes bemoaned and even captain Davide Calabria booed off the field.
Super subs, step forward. Alvaro Morata was a very dynamic presence when he came on – injuring himself in the process as it turns out – and he scored his first goal for Milan with an instinctive redirection of Tijjani Reijnders’ more hopeful low drive. Deficit halved, comeback on.
Then Noah Okafor continued his trend of coming up with clutch goals, lashing in a 95th-minute volley from Yunus Musah’s cross to take his total to six Serie A goals off the bench for Milan (out of seven in total). Theo Hernandez even made a late chance to engineer what would have been a ridiculous ending.
Where did things go wrong, and how was such a big hole dug? We must rewind around three hours from Okafor’s goal just before 23:00 CEST, to when Fonseca named his first starting line-up of the season.
The decision to use Alexis Saelemaekers at left-back was an intriguing one given he had not been used there in preseason and instead it was Filippo Terracciano who had been given minutes suggesting he would be Theo Hernandez’s immediate deputy.
It wasn’t a good night for the Belgian on the defensive end, as he seemed confused and at times naive. He conceded the header to Bellanova for the first goal without much of a fight, and on the second he let Lazaro go too easily, putting both Davide Calabria and Reijnders in difficulty after he’d been moved to the right.
It is almost certain that Fonseca will have proposed the idea to Saelemaekers in the build-up to the game – with Theo not yet close to 100% – and he will have shown a willingness to help the cause, but the habit of putting square pegs in round holes is something that needs to be broken.
The counter-argument is that circumstances dictated the need to experiment, with Alex Jimenez apparently out due to a knock and Terracciano not convincing in preseason. On Saturday Theo should be back, but the Pioli era showed us that certain inventions are best staying in the laboratory.
Moving on to the more debatable selections, Saelemaekers had Thiaw as his ‘partner’ on the left side of the defence, with Fikayo Tomori moving to the right-sided centre-back role in what we presume is a move to precede Strahinja Pavlovic’s inclusion in the team.
Thiaw’s meteoric rise was met with a pretty sharp decline which is something best explored in a separate article, so all we need say here is that he continued his error-prone nature. The German was fully to blame for Torino’s first and at least partially at fault for their second.
Matteo Gabbia – Milan’s most reliable centre-back in 2024 so far – must have been glaring at the back of Fonseca’s head and wondering what he had done wrong to seemingly not even be considered. Whether the Italian comes in or not, and it looks like he will not, it’s time for Thiaw to take a seat and go back to basics.
We will skip past the rest of the defence and the midfield owing to the fact those selections were virtually mandatory for various reasons, but one call that looks like a head-scratcher – with the benefit of hindsight, of course – is the one to start Luka Jovic up front.
Time and time again the Serbian has shown that his two strengths are: 1) playing off someone in a front two as he did at Eintracht Frankfurt and when Olivier Giroud was at Milan, and 2) coming off the bench to impact games when more space is naturally available.
He struggled to get involved, often dropping frustratingly deep, failing to link up well with the Leao-Pulisic-Chukwueze trio behind him and also showing a questionable work rate at times. It must be said, though, that he hardly got an abundance of service as the entire front four failed to click.
To round off the concerns and move on to what will hopefully be a brighter future, the general worries must also be briefly documented, which we went into more detail on during the tactical analysis piece published on Monday.
Milan struggled to generate any real sustained periods of pressure through their possession, the attacking play became very predictable cross-and-hope when a goal behind a la Pioli, the balance in transition still isn’t there and the set-piece defending was very worrying.
If this was the first exam for the Rossoneri under Fonseca, then it feels pretty certain that the new boss will be taking a resit.
Working towards the ‘new Milan’
Now we can go from glass half empty to glass half full, starting with the positives from Saturday’s game and the caveats that must be mentioned when contextualising the slow start.
Firstly, the statistics show that Milan actually didn’t play a bad game on balance. They had far more shots, shots on target, possession, big chances, corners and even Expected Goals (if you value that particular metric). As many fans said after the game, getting the first goal might have resulted in a very different post-match feeling.
Then there was the obvious plus point which was the fighting spirit shown. Morata came off the bench and injected not only some quality but also belief into the side, drawing a penalty kick that was overturned and scoring an offside goal before eventually halving the deficit with a nice finish
When Okafor rattled in the 2-2 goal and there were three minutes of added time left, there was genuine optimism reverberating around San Siro – both on the field and in the stands – that Milan could somehow emerge winners after being in the deepest of holes.
It is not something that Fonseca will want to make a habit of, yet it is also not a bad thing to have a team that never know when they are beaten, and more importantly can summon big moments when needed no matter how the previous 85 minutes have gone.
The important footnotes pertaining to the Torino game are obvious and perhaps should not be used as excuses given a lot of teams with internationals and new signings are battling the same difficulties, though pointing them out helps calm some panic.
Fonseca has only been working with the squad for five weeks, and when we say ‘the squad’ we mean the players who did not get an international call-up over the summer, which naturally means he didn’t have the key players.
Trying to establish a very different way of playing – albeit with the same system on paper – is hard enough in preseason with a tour of the USA factored in. Doing so without a lot of the players the plans have been built around is even harder, and the gulf was evident.
As a small caveat to the caveat, it must also be highlighted that it was Vanoli’s debut with Torino and the performance from his side was brilliant until they succumbed to the late chaos. Granted there was less pressure on them to come and dominate, yet they had a plan and executed it much better than whatever Milan were trying to do for the bulk of the game.
That brings us nicely onto the actual plan Fonseca has, more specifically the quite vast alterations in mind that will change the face of how the Diavolo look.
A starting premise: six out of the 11 players who started the game against Torino at the weekend are not expected to keep their place once everyone is fully fit and up to speed.
Emerson Royal and Youssouf Fofana should be available from the away match in Parma while the physical conditions of Theo Hernandez, Strahinja Pavlovic and Tijjani Reijnders should all improve after they sat on the bench from minute one on Saturday.
Saturday’s game against Parma could yet arrive a little too early to see all five of the aforementioned players from the first minute, but plenty will change compared to the season debut against the Granata.
Fonseca criticised his team for lack of intensity and pressure when Torino tried to come out from the back, but to ensure that Milan are able to recover the ball quickly they also need the right men to do so.
For example, Jovic is not as suited to frenetic pressing from the front as Morata, while Fofana in midfield has superior lungs and recovery ability compared to Loftus-Cheek and probably Bennacer, just as Emerson and Pavlovic should provide more solidity than that shown by Thiaw and Calabria.
To support Christian Pulisic as an attacking midfielder and the Chukwueze-Leao pair on the wings, everything behind and in front needs to give balance. If that’s not enough, Fonseca can always try to using Saelemaekers as someone more inclined to show sacrifice on the flank.
👀 How the 'new #ACMilan' should eventually look under Paulo Fonseca, according to @Gazzetta_it
🤔 Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/5gJUkN6jOg
— SempreMilan (@SempreMilanCom) August 20, 2024
As well as from a tactical point of view, Fonseca also knows his Milan can and must grow in quality. Starting with the likes of Theo, Reijnders or Morata should help, as the trio did on Saturday by sparking the comeback.
Reijnders – despite the usual question marks in the non-possession phase – is one of the most skilled in the squad with the ball at his feet, so much so that he had a hand in both goals and looked constantly willing to get on the ball. Leao even missed a chance to make it three.
Speaking of Rafa, having Morata and not Jovic as the one leading the line can contribute to the transformation project that Fonseca has in mind for his compatriot. Alvaro is more likely than the Serbian to drop deep to participate in the build-up and free up space for Leao to exploit.
We have mentioned Morata a few times and while it is true that he will miss the next couple of games due to a muscle injury, he will be the starting centre-forward when he returns and Fonseca’s system is built in part around that.
Who he starts in place of the Spaniard on Saturday in Parma may set the tone for some fans, who are looking for reassurances that Fonseca will not fall into the same trap that Pioli did by insisting with the same choices that are not bearing fruit. For example, Okafor over Jovic would send a certain message.
To simplify and summarise, the head coach is almost having to retool his Milan team on the fly after what was a complicated summer, and thus the line-up and the performance we saw on matchday one cannot be considered close to the finished product by any stretch.
The jeopardy of starting slow
So, we have established that Fonseca and Milan deserved the benefit of the doubt after a season debut in which things didn’t follow the fairytale script of the friendlies that came before.
The ex-Lille boss is now preparing for consecutive away games against Parma and Lazio which come before the international break, with a simple mission in mind: to make it seven points from the first nine available.
Starting well helps build momentum and confidence in the team itself but also in the stock market of fan approval, but Fonseca has never been a specialist in getting out of the block at a rapid rate, as history shows.
In France, for example, when he was at Lille (2022-23 and 2023-24) he amassed four points from the first three games in both seasons in Ligue 1. Overall, of course, his work with them over the remaining games would be judged as positive enough to land him this very job.
That is the same points return as in his second year at Roma (2020-21 season), while the season before that in the capital he got five points out of nine. The 51-year-old has only once taken nine points from nine: in Ukraine during his first season with Shakhtar Donetsk.
Perfect or near-perfect beginnings are not the specialty of the new coach, but it is better to forget the debut and think about the game at the Tardini in four days. The fans want the version of Milan seen in the last 10 minutes against Torino: aggressive, flowing, creative, dominant.
ll Giornale produced a rather reactionary piece the day after the game titled ‘Fonseca debuts in Giampaolo style: dubious roles for Loftus and Saelemaekers’, casting doubt on some of his choices for the starting line-up as we have already done.
They spoke about how ‘these are the mistakes made by Fonseca to the point of reliving in the minds of many fans the disturbing debut made by Giampaolo (1-0 defeat in Udine, with a very questionable team selection) at the dawn of the Boban-Maldini management’.
In that particular game, Giampaolo fielded a midfield three of Fabio Borini, Hakan Calhanoglu and Lucas Paqueta, with Suso playing in an unfamiliar playmaker role and Samu Castillejo – normally a winger – joining Krzysztof Piatek up front.
There are huge differences between the two coaches in terms of their tactical approach, their body of work before arriving at Milan, the way that they explain their choices to the media and even in their own publicly-declared ambitions.
There is also a massive gulf between where Milan were at as a club in the summer of 2019 compared to half a decade on. Pioli’s tenure stabilised things and brought a Scudetto, while there was a resurgence in things like the accounts and the Rossoneri’s global standing.
A much better platform is in place for Fonseca to succeed compared to the one that Giampaolo stood upon when he joined. And yet, there is one undeniable similarity: both started on zero points and are expected to rack them up in threes quickly.
Exactly how much good grace exists within the fan base is something that is best not to try and find out by pushing the limits. Ask Giampaolo how far beyond a few games it stretches – the answer for him was just a couple of flips of the calendar.
Give. The type of players we have we shouldn’t be tinker with new positions for these players. Let the players play to their strengths instead of forcing them to adapt to new roles on the pitch.
That is counterproductive and that’s where main problem lies.
433 is a better suited formation for this team and it gives us more balance in midfield, attack and defense.
The sooner Fonseca figures that out the better the team will play.
To be fair the way how the team is supposed to switch formations during matches it should accommodate them well enough as I see it and understood Fonseca’s views on tactics. Its not like we will be playing with a completely fixed formation.
Il Giornale and some fans right away compare Fonseca with Giampaolo based on his lineup choices. The difference is that Fonseca, for the most part, was forced to experiment while Giampaolo thought he was smarter than everyone else.
Saelemaekers played at LB because Theo wasn’t ready to start, and Milan has no backup left back. Terracciano is no better than Saelemaekers as a fullback. He was a cone during pre season. So Fonseca was forced to try and fit a square peg in a round hole. Milan needs to sign a left back before August 30th.
Bennacer and RLC, both terrible vs. Torino, player only because Reijnders and Fofana weren’t ready to start or available.
Jovic played because Morata wasn’t ready or even 100% healthy. Neither Jovic nor Okafor are strikers that can play by themselves. If Okafor started and the game ended the same way, with Jovic scoring of the bench, fans would complain why Jovic didn’t start. Milan needs to sign a striker (Tammy) capable of playing alone up top before August 30th.
Pulisic playing at 10, with Chuk at RW, messes up the balance of the team. But most fans have been calling for it since last season. Can’t knock it now because of 1 game.
The only question mark is Thiaw playing over Gabbia. But I thought fans were hyping up Thiaw, supposedly Real Madrid was interested in him, and they were saying that 40m is too low for such a player who will become a beast in the future when the report about Newcastle interest resurface. Thiaw needs to clear that ball point blank. Don’t matter if he is the best or worst defender ever, that’s a simple clearance. How is Fonseca questioned for his choices when a Milan defender, who some fans hype up, can’t make a simple clearance?
Coach can put players on the pitch, but it’s up to them to execute. No different than with the strikers. If Leao, Morata and Pulisic convert their chances, Milan wins the game. Leao miss in 1v1 with the Gk is just as bad as Thiaw inability to clear the ball. Both situations that alter the dynamics of the game.
At the end of the day, it comes down to execution. The coach can preach all day, but if the players can’t execute simple tasks, there is nothing the coach can do but take him out and put someone else that hopefully can execute.
Defensively, Fonseca will have hard time forcing Milan CB’s to unlearn the bad habits learned under Pioli. Both Tomori and Thiaw were way to aggressive trying to intercept the ball, missed and led to Milan conceding a goal or dangerous situations.
This article is a bit of an exaggeration. Milan easily could have and should have scored 4 goals in this match. It was mainly a few moments of defensive breakdowns that cost us. Removing Thiaw and Calabria along with having Theo back should improve things.
Why is everyone trying to find ways to get Seleamakers into the starting lineup? Has everyone got amnesia? We had him as our RW for years and we desperately needed someone better. We found that in Pulisic and now everyone wants to put Saleamakers back in there. He’s a useful bench player. Nothing more.
The idea is that the signings hit the ground running when they start. I think it’s gonna take a while for this thing to come together until the new signings learn to play with the rest of the team.
I’m keeping expectations low on the RW. Pavlo should feed from and pair well with Fik.
As for Fofana, we’ll see how that goes… hope he’s no worse initially than Benny. But at least we HAVE Benny to sub in if Fofana’s debut is anything like Van Bommel’s 🤣
The article that is an exaggeration only expands upon the points you mention in your comment, so I suppose you are exaggerating too?
It was one game. Guess the season is over and Atalanta is champion.. Better luck next season Fons
It’s absolutely wild how people react after one game. Plus, it ended up being a draw.. lol
Fickle, shortsighted people everywhere. Oh well. Just the way people are I guess.
Criticism that is realistic is desirable, but this kind of demolition of your team after one round is not good. If Leao and Pulisic had scored, they had two 100% chances each, today we would be reading a different story. Giampaolo had zero points and no game. Fonseca has 1 point and a game that will get better with each round. Forza Milan.
If pointing out where things went wrong and how they might improve is a ‘demolition’ of a team in your eyes, then I think they need testing.
Yes, this team demolition is classic. First, you all singled out Thiaw, who did make a mistake, but he wasn’t the only one. Let’s start with Calabria who lets the ball come to Zapata, then lets him cross, Salamanda doesn’t interfere with the player and then Tomori touches the ball and it goes along the goal line instead of going out. I remember when the great Baresi scored two own goals in one game, so he didn’t crucify himself. Do you want more? If you’re okay with comparing Fonseca to Giampaolo, then I recommend you watch the video of the match carefully and then come away smarting.
Did you even read the article? If so, you’ll see that Thiaw wasn’t the only one I criticised. And you’ve just blasted plenty of other players too, so now you’re demolishing the team. That’s how it works, right?
No, but I want support for the coach and the players we have, because I know that if everything works as it should, neither Real nor City will be comfortable. I repeat, there were mistakes like there are everywhere, but yes had Milan hit their chances, I guarantee that the result would have been two points in favor of Milan. We have to get rid of the ghosts of the past, when Sassuolo gave us five pieces, etc., etc. The road is long.
I agree with you, that’s why part of the article was to talk about what didn’t go right vs. Torino, then the next part was about why it didn’t go right and why the team will change for the better. There was no demolition job here! Anyway, tomorrow we will hopefully see brighter things!
I was a bit bothered by the comparison between Fonseca and Giampaolo (because I don’t even want to think that they are the same). Also that Thiaw should be shot for the goal, for which he is not the only one to blame. This will be a good Milan, I feel and believe that it will be European.
To me, no need to panic either – can’t draw any conclusions from a single game – didn’t play well but the best teams are off it some days. Not to mention, missing four or five likely starters from the side.
Three games to figure stuff out, an international break and then I start to judge what I see.
I hope we not win first 5 games,so this clown will be sacked. Ibra too with him
“I’d rather my assumptions be proved right than my team do well”
What a fan ladies and gentlemen.
And who exactly should replace them wise sage? I hear Stefano Pioli is on the market, already being paid by Milan and did quite well last time he was brought in after early season management didn’t work out.
Yeah with fans like that we certainly doesn’t need any enemies as we already got them 😀
I hope we win them all and I hope fons has similar success as pioli did.
Fonseca with Roma 5 and the 7 place, with Lille 5 and 4 places.
You expect he brings Scudetto??? This is a joke
Shoulda hired Motta