GdS: Zorro, video analysis and horses – behind the mask of Fonseca

AC Milan officially announced the appointment of Paulo Fonseca as the new head coach earlier today, and a report has revealed a bit about the man behind the metaphorical and literal mask.

La Gazzetta dello Sport state that Fonseca is a patient, thoughtful, sometimes even media-oriented figure. The first time the press talked about him was because of a promise he made to a Ukrainian journalist.

On 6 December 2017, after beating Pep Guardiola’s City with his miracle Shakhtar, he showed up at the conference wearing the mask of Zorro, looking for the reporter to whom he had said more or less this: “If we qualify for the round of 16 of Champions I come dressed like this.”

Paulo got the better of Pep after watching Manchester all week, thanks to an obsession with video analysis that has accompanied him since his days with Pinhalnovense, the Portuguese third division team that twice took them to the cup quarter-finals.

He arrives at Milan after coaching Lille for two years, who finished last season in fourth place in the Ligue 1 table and were eliminated by Aston Villa in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Conference League.

He has a strong link to Italy, too. In 2017 he married Kateryna in a villa on Lake Como. In 2019, their first child, Martin, was born. A curious story is that the two met at Shakhtar. She was the assistant of Rinat Akhmetov, the president of the club who promoted Paulo.

In Ukraine he won three league titles with Shakhtar, as many cups and a Super Cup, sweeping away rivals Dinamo Kiev. One of his secrets developed during his time at Shakhtar was Max Nagorski, the trusted translator born in Portimao, Portugal.

Fonseca grew up in Portugal, but was born in Mozambique, in Nampula, a city of cashews and little football, a Portuguese colony until 1975. In 2005 he stopped playing, did some apprenticeship and six years later he was already in the second division with the Desportivo Aves, a village of 8,000 inhabitants.

He finished third and came close to promotion, but the feat was only postponed. In 2013, with Pacos de Ferreira, he finished third again and reaches the Champions League. The club’s best result in 60 years of history.

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The first secret is leadership, as he revealed: “The way a coach solves things makes the difference. Managing influences behaviour, those who work with me know that they must be an active part.”

He plays a 4-2-3-1 with technical attacking midfielders who are good at making runs, full-backs that get up field and central defenders involved in build-up. He also gives video analysis and classroom lessons to the players, as if they were at school.

The trusted man, however, is Tiago Leal, who are “Paulo’s eyes”, a boy who grew up with Mourinho’s Porto and Football Manager, discovered while commentating on the United States-Portugal in 2014.

“He watched a video of mine by chance and thought that we had the same ideas. He had just signed for Pacos de Ferreira, he called me to his studio and we talked for two hours,” Fonseca revealed. Since that day he has always been next to him.

Another thing Fonseca loves horses, he owns a couple of them and keeps them at the Club Hipo do Norte in Esposende, about 40km west of Braga. They give him serenity, a bit like studying his opponents through dozens of videos.