There is a new name in the frame when it comes to AC Milan’s pursuit of a sporting director: ex-Atalanta man Lee Congerton.
This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport actually went one further by stating that Congerton is the man in pole to take over the vacant role at Milan, and that things are moving towards completion after no reports prior to today.
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Who exactly is the former Atalanta, Chelsea, Leicester City and Hamburg executive? Football Italia have taken a look at the most impressive deals the Welshman has pulled off in his career to date.
Congerton’s career to date
Congerton has had various coaching, scouting and directorship roles from his 25-year career after being a player. He was a youth team director for Wrexham and then became a coach under Gerard Houllier back in 2002.
He spent six years with Chelsea, under Jose Mourinho as head coach and Frank Arnesen as sporting director, and then went with Arnesen to Hamburger SV in the Bundesliga. He worked at Sunderland, Celtic and Leicester City as a sporting director, before heading to Atalanta in 2022.
With a background in scouting before becoming a sporting director, Congerton has discovered some top talents. He is credited with bringing Hakan Calhanoglu to Hamburg from Karlsruher who were in the third division, and he is now a star at Inter.
The other signings that he made at HSV include Rafael Van der Vaart from Tottenham, while Jonathan Tah and Christian Norgaard were among the youth players promoted to the first-team during Congerton’s spell as technical director.
While with Leicester, the team finished fifth under his watch. His most notable signings there include the €45m arrival of Youri Tielemans from AS Monaco as well as Wesley Fofana, who joined for around €35m and was later sold to Chelsea for a staggering €80m.
Congerton was working as chief scout at Celtic when they signed Odsonne Edouard for a €10m fee, who would go on to be a prolific scorer as they racked up many trophies. He then headed to Crystal Palace for a €16m fee. Congerton also signed Tim Weah on loan for the Glasgow side from PSG.
At Atalanta he had a big role in signing Ademola Lookman who he knew from his time at Leicester City. Ederson and Rasmus Hojlund also joined under his watch, the latter of whom generated over €50m in profit for La Dea after his move to Manchester United.
While with Chelsea, Congerton was ‘largely tasked with identifying young players’ that were ready for the first team. The likes of Ryan Bertrand, Daniel Sturridge and Fabio Borini were among those to make the jump during his time.
He seems like a good guy for the job tbh. Didn’t know him at all but I like that he seems to have a very wide network across many countries.
Sadly, a new SD won’t matwr with our horrible management. I’d actually suggest any promising director to stay away from Milan’s sh*t show until Gerry sells the club. For their own reputation…
He did a decent job of identifying young talent then flipping them. He never built a stable, title-chasing team though. But, all those rats at RedBird care about is profit.
Wasn’t Moncada the one who assembled the all mighty 16/17 Monaco with Mbappe, Fabinho, Bernardo Silva, Bakayoko and Falcao? And now he turned out to be an actual fraud.
Moncada did good job most of his signings are good our problems came from cardinale, cardinale gave the power to ibrahimovic and that useless killed milan he chased abate he chased pioli all other members wanted pioli to finish his last year but the boss ibrahimovic said i will replace him with better couch it was Fonseca after Fonseca coinceo and now he was trying to bring SD until furlani get angry and went to cardinale to explain for all sh*t ibrahimovic did and he still trying to destroy this club for his chicken brain moncada brought better players but he was not in charge all we need is better couch and sack ibrahimovic
Most of the signings are good? From what multiverse version you dropped? They spent 250 millions on 18 players from which only Reijnders and Pulišić turned out good. Fofana maybe and Gimenez needs time. That’s it.
Ted don’t forget some of the players asked by coaches + he is human being we all do some mistakes other than that moncada created strong squad for us if we get better couch for sure we will win something big if we ad DM someone like ederson and prolific st like Gyokeres then we are fire
Missing a right back, missing a left back deputy, missing a defensive midfielder, missing playmakers. On the wings we have “he’s there for the number” Sottil, “overpriced one trick pony” Chukwueze and “coach’s request” Felix. Then there are Okafor, Emerson, Musah and RLC who should just do football world a favour and retire.
No, this team is toothless and poorly constructed by non other than Moncada.
He was never the technical director in Monaco.
Scouting and being a director aren’t the same.
As a scout the final decision to bring this or that player isn’t yours, you just find players that fit certain profiles according to what the director (or sometimes coach) asks you to do.
But prior to 2023, Moncada had never such a big responisibility.
I am comparing him to this new name Congerton who also acted as a chief scout while finding the likes of Lookman and Calhanoglu. And now he’s endorsed as some kind of a hot shot director. See the pattern here?
2 years at Atalanta doesn’t make him an SD that is competent in Serie A. He’s so relevant he’s in Saudia now?
100% correct. That shows how clueless cardinale, furlani and the rest of them are regarding how to run a big football club. Instead of hiring a proven successful SD to bring back the club from darkness, they opt for someone who had an internship in a minor club.