Mauro Tassotti leao

‘He must play’ – Tassotti urges Fonseca to avoid ‘masochism’ in handling of Leao

Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

Mauro Tassotti has given his thoughts on the Rafael Leao situation, revealing his belief that AC Milan simply cannot do without him.

Leao was not named in the starting line-up for Tuesday’s 2-0 home defeat to Napoli and that has brought further question marks regarding his relationship with Paulo Fonseca, with talk of things being close to a breaking point.

Christian Pulisic was a late omission from the XI for the game against the league leaders and yet Fonseca – who had benched Leao in the previous home league game against Udinese – decided to leave his compatriot out again.

Tassotti gave an interview to La Gazzetta dello Sport about the saga that surrounds the Portuguese forward and he made it clear that he should be played because of his importance to Milan.

“Milan can’t do it without him, he’s too important for the team. I don’t know the situation inside, but keeping him on the bench as a punishment is one thing, but if Leao stays out due to a technical choice then there’s something wrong,” he said.

“If you have a great player in your squad you should put it in a condition to express to his best. It’s okay to make rotations at times to spur him to do better, but without getting to masochism.

“Will he start against Monza? To be fair, I would’ve expected to see him start against Napoli too. He would’ve certainly created dangers on the left, maybe someone else could’ve been asked a sacrifice to cover up.

“There’s Morata already running like a desperate. Leao always played great games against Napoli, if he feels good, you should keep him on the pitch as long as possible.

“If he’s not fit, it’s a different thing. But he’s the strongest player in the team, if he can, he must play. He could’ve taken advantage of his speed [against Napoli]. In my opinion, he should do it even more, especially when he doesn’t have the ball.

“He wants the ball on his feet too often. He can easily run past his opponents; he should run without the ball and then shoot with a single touch, avoiding all that dribbling. He must get more complete: in this way, he would scare his opponents even more.

Leao Fonseca
Photo by Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images

“The manager should fully recover him. From here until the end of the season, he should spend his time on the pitch, not on the bench. He has his own features, we’ll never see Leao killing himself by making defensive tackles. Behaviours are a different thing, and it’s right that Leao must have a proper attitude.

“However, he won’t ever be a generous player; it’s a matter of character. Morata has always been like that, he’s not. There are players, that often share his same characteristics, that have a similar attitude – Cassano comes to my mind, you have to be on his back all the time.

“Rafa exaggerates at times, he plays the ball back very slowly with his head dangling: it’s annoying for the fans. You can make that pass more quickly and with a different attitude, but persuading him to do things in a certain way is within the manager’s tasks.

“The team-mates can also push him and he’ll understand sooner or later, as he’s not stupid. I would’ve expected more harmony between the two [Leao and Fonseca], I thought the relationship would be easier as they speak the same language.”

Tags AC Milan Mauro Tassotti Rafael Leao

19 Comments

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  1. “Rafa exaggerates at times, he plays the ball back very slowly with his head dangling: it’s annoying for the fans. You can make that pass more quickly and with a different attitude, but persuading him to do things in a certain way is within the manager’s tasks”

    This!

    This is a really great point. His body language when he doesn’t get to do what he wants to do in an offence is very bad. He should play a quick pass and try to find a new position. Instead he plays a slow pass backwards and waits for others to do something in this attack.

    Anyway. He should’ve been played. And Okafor could’ve been our #9 and Morata behind him.

  2. I know here that the general mood is, sell sell sell. And how brave and right is Fonseca to bench him. But I will tell you the following, the difference between Milan being a top table club and a mid table are Leao and Theo. Not Fonseca.

  3. Says he needs to play all the time then starts explaining where he must improve himself to be an effective player.
    Maybe the reason he doesn’t start is because he doesn’t want to improve to be an effective player?
    Pioli gave him slack and we suffered for it in defense. Fonseca doesn’t want to do that. We’re still suffering in defense..

    Everyone is talking about leao and he isn’t the problem and we don’t need him 2 be honest. Our problem right now is the lack of defensive cohesion and a lack of midfielder cohesion.
    Who plays on lw is fûcking irrelevant and is drawing attention away from what are actual problems we have.

    1. Yeah, you keep embarrassing yourself. Great 🙂 It is irrelevant who play on LW. Completely, they should get kids from Primavera and play them at LW and RW, irrelevant who plays there.

      1. Yes it’s irrelevant who plays lw. And yes kids from futuro would do just fine.

        Don’t worry Igor. I know your tiny little brain is incapable of realising how a football team works. I’ve seen, or should I say ignored, your comments. Stupid cùnt you are. Stupid!
        BAKA

  4. Who, in any of the five big leagues, is a fast, dribbling, scoring and defending player who leads his team? My sense is that our expectations are too high. His speed and dribbling is elite. But the rest of his contribution is average, or below average. So reset the expectation, and set the team up for success. A strong 8, Wingback and Center Back will always be needed on the left to compensate for this enigmatic talent who does not have a defending bone in his body.

    1. Vini, Kvara, Pulisic, just to name a few. They are fast, scoring, dribbling, defending.
      Defending as a forward player is about effort and winning mindset. They have it, Leao doesn’t.
      Leao also isn’t scoring. We keep talking about his lackluster effort on defense when his offensive output is just as putrid.

        1. But you forgot to mention the assists he has. Most of his assists are chances and goals that Leao created. How can you hate a player that brought Milan the scudetto after that many years beats me. But half of you here don’t get football and think players like Reijnders and Pavlovic will bring us to the top. The only top players in this team are Maignan, Hernandez and Leao. Pulisic is effective, scores a lot, but he rarely creates anything.

        2. Ha ha ha.
          Kvara is absolutely a better player than Leao, and Pulisic is Milan’s best player, but sure, whatever you say.
          Leao is faster than them, but they are all better at football than him

        3. See a perfect example how stupid you are. You just wrote that pulisic can’t dribble past a dummy.
          How the fùck would anyone take your serious when you write such untrue comments?

          Puli is a great dribbler

          1. Mate pulisic does not dribble. I think your confused with scoring or shooting in general but he definitely doesn’t beat his man.

            I don’t know what your talking about.

          2. Wtf is wrong with you? The Liverpool goal? Dude walked past a third of the team. Pulisic is a smart player. He dribbles when he knows he will beat his mean. Unlike most dribblers who just run at them every time and lose the ball 80% of the time..
            When it’s time to control the ball in small space you definitely want puli to be the guy doing the controlling and not a player like Leao..

            It’s no news to me you people are plain stupid and don’t even know the strengths of our own players.
            Saying Pulisic doesn’t dribble is like saying mike doesn’t play with his hands.. fúcking imbeciles

          3. Yeah he is known for his dribbling, and also keep in mind he’s a right-footed winger playing on the right, that’s not a setup to beat someone off the dribble. When he plays his natural LW position you see it a lot more.

      1. You name Vini and Kvara, great players to be sure, but they are not the leaders of their teams. Salah and Foden are both great too, but the team leaders are players like Van Dijk and De Bruyne. Rafa needs to finish like Salah and Foden, and track back to help defensively to at least somewhere on the Milan side of midfield. Leaders will emerge at Milan, but Rafa will not be one of them. He will just be one of the boys.

  5. I remember leao starting every other game that we lost prior to this one, I don’t understand the new school of thought that we lost because he was out…

    We actually lost because we didn’t expect to be without 4 of our best players against the league leaders…

  6. I would expect better judgement from Tassotti. Leao is NOT a great player. He can be, but as yet he is just an over rated expensive, still learning how to walk without falling, player. Milan is better without him.

  7. Guys make it sound as though it was ONLY leao that scored the crunch goals for us when we won the scudetto. He is an added advantage but not the best player we have presently – that is a fact.
    Leao has been pampered right from Milan paying his debts technically to bumping up his wages and all. Last season when Pioli was in charge his performance dropped to the “usual” level.

    What was his excuse then? Milan have to wait for him to find his form again, okay. Wait till when exactly? It took him 2 years to score double digit goals and 3 years to show his talent. The excuse was he is young and growing. Well he is 25yrs now, and about to be a father of twins. Its time to grow up, diversify his skills. Do you think he or Theo could have defied Conte and not be benched?

    He took the #10 jersey to signify he was our fantasista & talisman but has lived short of expectations. I have never been in support of hiring fonseca, but there is certain level of disrespect that out not be tolerated.

    The management has their share Ff faults, but come on, some players have egos bigger than Ibra. IF you demand responsibility like #10 then deliver and don’t sulk.

    If Fonseca is fired, at least let him be fired for his own mistakes and not some player who decided to sulk because he was benched.

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