Mike Maignan has opened up about his demanding but also necessary winning mentality in a long interview. As most AC Milan fans know already, the goalkeeper is fully focused on becoming the best in the world.
Milan’s chief scout Geoffrey Moncada has previously explained that French players have a different mentality compared to others. He has also named Maignan as a prime example of such a player and we can certainly understand why.
In a long interview with the French rapper Ninho published on his social media, coming in at 40 minutes, Maignan opened up about his demanding winning mentality. Down below are some interesting outtakes from the interview.
On his in-depth analysing…
“I’ll give you an example. Let’s say we lose a game 2-1, I let in two goals and I cannot do anything. But I’m going to be thinking about what I could have done to prevent that situation from happening. At what point should I have talked to a player to prevent that situation? That’s my train of thought.
“If I’m the one who made the mistake, I’ll sit in front of the computer and watch the video, either alone or with my coach, maybe at night because I like to take time to think. I look at every detail, and once I’ve analysed where I went wrong, I look to see where the other error was made. If a player made a mistake, what could I have told him to warn him, so that it doesn’t happen? These details explain who I am.”
On how he feels about praise…
“Honestly, it doesn’t change anything for me. As you said: work. And I work I’d say three times harder. Now I’m fine-tuning, I’ve got most of the basics down. I try to maintain the basics and work on the details. It becomes more of a mental task. For every situation, I need to think two or three seconds ahead.
“When the player has the ball, I already know all the options: either he goes first post, or the centre or he dribbles. I don’t put any more pressure than that on myself. I work and I work. I wake up every morning to perform, to be the best.
“My teammates are with me, we play in the same team on the weekend, but at the end of the training sessions I need to be better than them. When we play a game in training, my team must win. If I don’t win, there’s a problem.”
On the media…
“I’m not the kind of guy who reads the press. Sometimes, I get notifications that I really don’t appreciate. ‘So and so is better than you’. Stuff like that really annoys me, because I know it’s not true.
“Sometimes, I get crazy. 11 pm, I get up, I go to my sports room and I train: third training session of the day. And I don’t get tired. After the game, when I’ve smoked my opponent, then I can rest.
“Then I start preparing on the basis of my own performance. What did I do to perform like that? Little by little, I try to change some things. It’s all about my performance, I don’t care what others say, but I like to prove people wrong.”
In short, Maignan is fully focused on becoming the best in the world and knows exactly what needs to be done to get there. You can take look at the entire interview in the video below.
🎙️@ninhosdt x @mmseize
☝🏾Us by us, for you
🇬🇧Subtitles pic.twitter.com/sNVdusIvky— Magic Mike Maignan (@mmseize) August 3, 2023
Love Big Mike, future Captain
Top mentality, best keeper in the world when he’s fit for a reason
There is a big difference in mentality between Mike and the prior keeper.
The prior keeper was a starter for one of the biggest clubs in sport at age 16. More mature players can’t handle the pressure he was under, especially as a GK, where every single mistake is crucial.
You might not like Gigio because he left, because he isn’t as good as Maignan, especially with his feet, you can question his skill level but his mentality is not in question
Although his mentality has crumbled in PSG and those hazardous errors of his are a constant thing. But so what, who gives a ****. Not our problem.
Mike has been an heaven-sent treasure for Milan…. God knows we would have been mbapped by the whimpy dollar boy – over $10mils per season and useless brother earning over $3mils…. Pathetic