The scene of Sergio Conceicao dancing with a cigar in his mouth in the dressing room after the Supercoppa Italiana win rightly went viral.
As Corriere della Sera (via MilanNews) report, Conceicao was actually emulating a celebration that he often did with Porto, given he won 11 trophies in seven seasons there. The Rossoneri world has been turned upside down, and it is largely thanks to the Portuguese coach.
Rules, mentality and hunger
The paper puts the change at Milan in musical terms, going from the slow pace of Paulo Fonseca – characterized by inconsistent and soft performances – to the heavy metal of Conceicao.
As soon as he arrived at Milanello the former Porto boss instantly began – also for reasons of time constraints – to work on the minds and mentality of the players. He immediately established rules on timetables and nutrition to avoid the same misunderstandings Fonseca encountered.
From those guidelines he began to work on the psychology of the players. In recent days everyone who has appeared on the microphones has spoken of the different energy but the stand-out quote is that of Pulisic.
“The coach told us that hunger is more important than tactics,” he said after the Supercoppa final.The point is this: the Rossoneri needed an emotional shock more than technical-tactical changes.
Champions League and the future
In recent days in Riyadh there has been an ‘electroshock’ but now it is important that its effects last over time. The positive wave of having won a trophy and having beaten Juventus and Inter is certainly a good starting point.
Even Zlatan Ibrahimovic himself – the Senior Advisor to Milan – was positively impressed by Conceicao’s impact and thanked him in front of everyone in the dressing room. Now, they must immediately get back to work because the real objective is the Champions League.
Fiorentina and Lazio have dropped a few points recently and the ‘new Milan’ must take advantage of the period to try to get back into the running. A comeback in this second half of the season could also guarantee Conceicao’s stay, but now is too early to talk.
This tournament, important or not, was fundamental for Sergio to take off and get the team on his side. It was fundamental for these lads and the mentality. These aspect are worth a lot more than the trophy won.
Now we will see if they can keep this momentum. Surely there will also be defeats but if they put their heart into it and show willingness to fight until the end, no one will hold it against them, I am sure.
100% The psychological turnaround evident in this team is worth more than SuperCoppa or the 8mil it came with. Almost like a “RESTART” button for these players.
Make sure we play 442, not 4231 or 433. Seems like new coach understood Milan DNA immediately.
People are way overreacting to 2 games. No one is happier than me about beating Inter and winning a trophy but let’s be honest about it. Let’s not pretend that he came in and now Milan is playing amazing football.
We were lucky to get by Juventus. The first half of the Juventus match was about as bad as I’ve seen Milan look. They played much better in the second, but it was a silly penalty given by Rabiot and a weird deflected own goal that won us the game.
Against Inter we were down 2-0 and if not for some brilliant saves by Maignan Inter could have easily had 4 or 5. The results are great and the effort was great but not necessarily the performance.
And Fonseca’s problem was not beating the top teams, Milan played well against the top teams, it was dropping points against weaker teams. It was getting the players to play well and play hard against bottom table teams. We’ve yet to see if Conceicao can change that. Hopefully he can.
“And Fonseca’s problem was not beating the top teams….”
Napoli: loss
Atalanta: loss
Inter: won
Lazio: draw
Juve: draw
Fiorentina: loss
One victory against those above us is playing well? Lol. Quit while you’re behind buddy.
I like how you conveniently left out beating Real Madrid at the Bernabeu in the Champions League. I’m sure that was just an honest mistake on your part.
And we outplayed Napoli even with half of our team out that match.
And the Fiorentina and Atalanta losses were squarely on your boy Theo, not on the coach.
What a t.wat!! I’m so happy you’ve been exposing your idiocy for all to see in recent times. Simple stats that disprove your point aggravates you eh? Haha 😂
You keep going on about two victories out of how many and those two, most people would agree (except you ofc) that we caught Inter and Real at their bad moment (but a W nonetheless right?). Because let’s see, compare what form they had after to what we’ve been showing.. they’re both competing for a league title and your boyfriend Fonseca has us languishing in 8th.
If you didn’t realize, I didn’t leave out anything on purpose. The ones I listed were simply Serie A ‘top’ teams ie teams ahead of us. Our record against top teams in the league reads 1W, 2D, 3L. If you think that’s “beating top teams” then than god you’re not in management because we would have kept Fonsy whole season (you even said as much).
Even in the UCL we also only have one win against a top team, Real. But keep shifting goal posts to suit your narrative. Did you CONVENIENTLY leave out losses to Liverpool and Leverkusen?? See how easy that was once more? So in the UCL our record against top teams reads 1W 2L. Hardly “beating top teams” unless you think Slovan and Red Star are top teams, I wouldn’t put it past you. We’re however in a decent position in the UCL but that’s besides the point. We’re lucky we don’t have other “top teams” to play and we’re lucky we have a different coach because your boyfriend Fonsy would have completely crashed our season.