More than three weeks after the official announcement was made, on Monday, we finally got to meet our new manager, Paulo Fonseca. Normally, the manager is present when the club makes the announcement, but instead, we got a 90 minute Q&A with Ibrahimović that offered us very little new information, other than the official new manager announcement. Fonseca's contract should have begun July 1st, but he and his staff only arrived in Milano on Saturday the 6th of July, homeless and with ill-fitting clothing and very poor fashion sense. Not exactly making the best first impression for a new job. But fans are so distracted by the club's lack of mercato signings, that no one seems to be talking about the new manager's questionable lack of basic professionalism as the Paulo Fonseca era begins.
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| Still a bit disheveled the second day, but better than the first. Improvement is good. |
If we are going by the old adage "you never get a second chance to make a first impression," then Fonseca has already dug himself into a hole. However, if you subscribe to the theory that you should "never judge a book by its cover," then he has the opportunity to prove his merits on the pitch. Maybe. Because even if he is quite literally going to be living at work, it kind of seems like the club is setting him up to fail.
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| Please someone, get that man a stylist, that is all wrong. And some new players. |
Is Fonseca Being Set Up to Fail?
First of all, no one from the club even bothered to meet him at the airport. It was just a driver. More importantly, however, there is a blatant lack of any measurable progress in the transfer market, and this management have offered nothing but empty promises to this point this summer. So far, Giroud, Kjaer, Mirante, and Caldara have all left due to their contracts ending, yet none have been replaced. As we watch all the other clubs make very solid signings to reinforce their teams, fans are becoming increasingly impatient. In fact, the Curva Sud did not attend Raduno (the first day back at Milanello,) citing a lack of new signings. But when asked about the lack of new players, Fonseca cited a Portuguese saying that roughly translates to "Rushing is the enemy of perfection." This management certainly found their new yes-man.
Even more alarming, according to the press conference with Ibrahimović and Fonseca, not only did they completely dodge the question about replacing the experienced players who left with comparable experience, they will apparently be downsizing the number of players in the first team... again. The former Milan striker-turned RedBird Operating Partner said they want to have only 23 players in the first team. While the previous management aimed for 27 or 28 players, due to serious injuries, we had up to 30, and were still reliant upon our Primavera players for depth. For further perspective, in the Champions League, teams are allowed up to 25 players for List A, as well as an unlimited number of List B (younger) players. In fact, for the Euro 2024 competition this year, they increased the squad size to 26 players, and may increase that number for all UEFA competitions.
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| Does Ibrahimović actually have Milan's/Fonseca's best interests at heart? Or is he compromised? |
While Milan will have their new U23 team to pull players from, as Ibrahimović repeatedly pointed out in the lengthy Milan Futuro press conference, they are boys, not men, and the purpose of that team is to develop them, not to exploit them. But apparently, they do plan to exploit them, because 23 players is simply nowhere near enough for the first team, especially playing in four competitions. For example, when we were averaging 7-8 players injured for months at a time, and up to 11 players out injured at once, we would be relying heavily on the Futuro and Primavera squads, who have their own busy calendars to compete in.
Last year, they decreased the squad to only 25 players, which we saw stretched the team immensely when injuries hit. This gave many Primavera players not only more consistent call ups for the first team (impacting their league efforts,) but also gave them their Serie A debuts. While this was exciting for them and for the fans, and a couple of them even scored goals at San Siro, as soon as the first team players were healthy, they were sent back to Abate's squad. Not so much development, but a stop gap. However, by restricting both the first team and the U23 team to 23 players each, they only need to pay first team salaries to 23 players, but they abuse use the 23 players from the U23 team and their much smaller salaries to fill in the gaps. That's disgusting. Players are already at much higher risk for injury now due to congested fixture lists all year long. They do not need to be playing fixtures consistently for all three teams.
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| We would all love to have fewer injuries this year. |
Fonseca and his staff are confident in their capability to reduce injuries to our squad. But without knowing for certain what even caused the previous injury catastrophes, it is a massive risk to limit the first team to only 23 players. Especially given that our injury crises have typically hit in late October or November, but the transfer window closes September 1st and does not open again until January 1st. Ibrahimović also mentioned that they had changed a number of the medical staff in hopes of preventing injuries, but again, if the medical staff were not the cause, then the club could really be setting Fonseca (and therefore, Milan) up to fail.
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| Will his success be determined by factors outside of his control? |
Who Is Paulo Fonseca the Manager?
As for Fonseca himself, he basically lives up to expectations. Not egregiously offensive, but not overwhelmingly endearing, either. He had previously mentioned his admiration of Milan and the great players of our past while managing at Roma, something he has reiterated since joining Milan and seeing the history at Casa Milan. So, while a bit starstruck, he also spoke confidently and with ambition. Which is bold, considering he has never had an opportunity anywhere near this magnitude, let alone with the added weight of creating synergy with the new Milan Futuro team and a new manager of the Primavera side as well. But at least he tried to say all the right things that everyone wanted to hear.
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| By the age of 40, he was managing Portugal's best team. |
Portuguese Clubs
Immediately upon retiring as a center back at the age of 32, Fonseca took charge of the youth teams at the first division club he had been playing for in Portugal, Estrela da Amadora. He spent the next five years managing four different lower division teams until he was appointed to be the manager of Paços de Farreira in Portugal's top flight in 2012, where he took them to third place just behind giants Porto and Benfica. Due to that early success, the following season, he was appointed to be the manager of Portuguese giants Porto, winning his first trophy, the Supertaça (comparable to the Italian Supercoppa,) but was then sacked in March after some disappointing results. Fonseca went back to Paços de Farreira in 2014, leading them to an eighth place finish in the 2014-15 season.
The following year, in 2015, Fonseca was hired to manage Braga, finishing fourth in the Portuguese Primeira Liga. Braga also won the Taça de Portugal (comparable to the Coppa Italia) that year, ironically defeating his previous club Porto to win it. In the Europa League, he took Braga all the way to the Quarterfinals, where they were knocked out 6-1 on aggregate by his next future club, Shakhtar Donetsk.
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| Fonseca's first job abroad was arguably his most successful. |
Shakhtar Donetsk
He was hired by the Ukrainian club in 2016. This was not only his first coaching job abroad, but also overwhelmingly his most successful stretch as manager. In his three years at Shakhtar, Fonseca won the double (league and domestic cup) all three years, as well as the Ukrainian Super Cup in 2017. He won a record 103 out of 139 matches, an extraordinary 74% win rate. He was also named the Ukrainian League's best coach for the 2016-17 season.
However, it is what he did in the Champions League that became the most memorable. While leading Shakhtar Donetsk to the Round of 16 in 2017-18 season, the Ukrainian side finished second in their group. On their way to this second place finish, they infamously snapped Pep Guardiola's 29 match unbeaten streak by defeating Manchester City 2-1 in Donetsk.
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| The costume was probably more for him than for anyone else. |
He had made the notorious promise that if they won that match, he would do the press conference dressed as Zorro. (Apparently he loved Zorro as a kid. Personally, I would like to workshop some Milan-level costumes for him should he do something spectacular here, but to be comparable, he might have to actually win the Champions League, or even the treble, so he and I probably won't need to have those conversations.) Shakhtar were eventually knocked out by... wait for it... his next club, Roma. His football managing Karma certainly has a sense of irony.
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| Fonseca just before he left Roma... maybe it was the hat? |
Roma
Milan fans know Fonseca best for his time at Roma beginning in 2019, where he was villainized for poor football and failing to meet expectations. But to be fair, he was at Roma. And he did manage them through the pandemic, when most teams reacted poorly to the shutdown, as well as a change in ownership. Also, his results were not as bad as some make them out to be. His first year, Roma finished fifth in Serie A, four points above Milan in their Giampaolo/Pioli year, and Fonseca at least led them to Europa League qualification. In the 2020-21 season, Roma finished 7th place in the league, but Fonseca did take them all the way to the Europa League semifinal, defeating former clubs Braga and Shakhtar in the knockout rounds along the way before finally being defeated 8-5 on aggregate by Manchester United.
Another Milan-related story from this time was that Fonseca and Florenzi had a falling out. Well, Florenzi, who was born in Rome, is a lifelong Romanista, and was Roma captain at the time, was pushed out by Fonseca, going on loan to Valencia in January after the Portuguese tactician arrived, and then loaned to PSG the following season. Fonseca basically told him that he was not going to play him, so Florenzi left, got plenty of playing time, ended up winning a couple of cup trophies with PSG, the UEFA Euro 2020 with Italy, and the Scudetto with Milan before making his move to Milan permanent.
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| Not sure if we are ready for this sequel. |
Fonseca, meanwhile, remained trophyless. And while Florenzi has always impressed me as a player whose confidence exceeds his abilities, it kind of felt like Fonseca may be quite similar, and that is perhaps why they did not get along. Hopefully, he will not do the same thing to our own Italian right back and captain who came through Milan's youth system and is at a similar point now in his career as Florenzi was at Roma. (Although, to be fair, Calabria is a lot more zen than Florenzi, so is less likely to have a conflict.)
Fonseca also clashed with other important players while in the Italian capital, and made two costly errors, one by playing an ineligible player, and another by subbing one too many players, both leading to 3-0 losses for Roma each time. So, days before their Europa League semifinal, Roma announced that Fonseca would be leaving at the end of the season, to be replaced by a fellow Portuguese manager who was quite influential on Fonseca's career, Jose Mourinho. Following his departure from Roma, Fonseca was linked with several different Premier League clubs – Tottenham, Newcastle, and Aston Villa – but he ended up having the year off, as none of those positions worked out.
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| Will Calabria face the same fate as Florenzi? |
Lille
France was Fonseca's next destination, as he was hired by LOSC (Lille) in 2022. In his first season, they finished fifth domestically, which was enough to qualify for the UEFA Europa Conference League for the following season. Within that competition last season, Fonseca took them all the way to the quarterfinals, where they met Aston Villa. Their matches were tied at 3-3 on aggregate, and Lille were unlucky, being knocked out by losing 4-3 on penalties. Last season, Lille also finished fourth in Ligue 1, which qualified them for the Champions League third qualifying round for this season. Fonseca left Lille by mutual agreement in June in order to become homeless and take the job at Milan.
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| If he picked up any French at his last job, he'll be able to understand what some of our players are saying about him. |
What Type of Tactics Can We Expect From Fonseca?
The preferred system Fonseca has used most at each of his his last three clubs is a 4-2-3-1, which is likely one of the reasons Milan hired him, so as not to have to revamp the entire squad. However, he did, in his own words, use a 3-4-3 at Roma, because he found it more suitable to the way the other Italian teams played. His teams have traditionally played possession-based, attacking football, where they spend plenty of time in their opponents' half and try to create as many chances as possible. Again, not unlike the way this team has tried to play for the last five years.
Fonseca said that he wants his team to be courageous, to dominate possession, to "think and react," and to be an attacking side that most importantly will make fans proud. He also said that he wanted our players to press more, and to learn to defend further from our own goal. I believe he also mentioned at some point that he wanted to get away from the man marking that is so common in Italy, and teach the players to defend differently.
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| Fonseca already at work instilling his ideas in his players. |
One of the expectations is that he will strengthen the defense. Ironically, the talks of selling Thiaw, the center back with the most flexibility in a three man or four man backline, come exactly at the wrong time for Fonseca. Also, most people in the football world consider the club signing a defensive midfielder and reinforcing the defense the most likely way for any manager to be able to strengthen this defense, but perhaps if he can get them to maintain possession in their opponent's half for 90 minutes, that will be enough.
Fonseca during his time as a center back at Estrela da Amadora.
Paulo Fonseca the Man
While his family relocated to Barreiro, Portugal when he was just a year old, Fonseca was actually born in Nampula in what is now known as Mozambique in 1973. As he grew, he was involved in the local youth teams from the age of 9 through 18, with his last five years of youth football spent at Barreirense. At that point, he moved up to their first team, where he played in the third division for four years. In 1995, he was signed by Porto, but went out on loan all three years of his contract. His first top flight team was Leça, then he also spent a year at Belenenses, and his final year of his contract at Maritimo. He had become his teams' starting center back in the Primeira Liga. After those three clubs, he spent two years as a backup defender at Vitória Guimarães, and again as a backup for his final years at Estrela da Amadora. Upon retiring at the age of 32, he immediately began managing.
Fonseca married his first wife, Sandra Patrícia Fonseca, with whom they have a son and a daughter, both now adults. In 2018, he showed his passion for developing youth as he remarried, this time to a Ukrainian television personality who is 18 years younger than him, Katerina Ostroushko, whom he had met during his time at Shakhtar. They now have two young sons, which also demonstrates his commitment to youth. During his press conference, he was asked about the Ukraine flag pin he wore on his lapel, and he shared that we must not forget that Ukraine is still fighting for their freedom. Not only is this near and dear to his heart due to his time living and working there, or his wife and her family, he and his own family barely escaped their home in Ukraine in 2022 when Russia invaded, having to travel 30 hours to Romania in order to find safety. Certainly, his cause is very real, he is not just another lapel pin-wearing celebrity speaking out against war.
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| The Fonseca Family II, The Sequel. |
Unlike his predecessor, I cannot find endless testimonies from former players and everyone around him about what a good person he is, how he helped them grow as men, or even how much he helped them improve as players. (That is not to say that he has not done those things, but no one is overtly talking about them.) Instead, there are stories of a mediocre defender who only played in Portugal, retired from football relatively young to go into coaching, but had early success, then clashed with important players, pushing his own captain out, and testimonies of his "honesty." Well, and the Zorro costume, of course. That is certainly unique.
His winning records speak for themselves, except that he has never been given a team(s) like this before, or been tested in four competitions at this level before. There is a claim that he is good at developing young players, but he himself claims it is not about the player's age, but their ability. As for the football, all I remember is that plenty of people complained about his football style at Roma, even if he was limited by the fact that he was coaching Roma. Is he even a step up from Pioli? Or even a horizontal move? It honestly sounds like they hired the cheaper, less experienced, foreign version of Pioli with hair, but without the man management skills or home or longterm successful marriage or fashion sense. But this team was in need of some fresh ideas, so maybe he will at least bring those. Or at least find an actual home for himself. Who knows?
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| Welcome to Milan... er... home, Fonseca. |
However, as for the Club itself, it is not only the manager they are being cheap about. So far, they have yet to move many players on, let alone sign any new players. It as if they are transfer constipated. And it is not as if they have a nice, easy relaxing summer. Our friendlies start in only a week, with a trip to Austria, then almost immediately a long and tiring trip to America and matches against big teams, coming back just in time to defend our title in the illustrious Trofeo Silvio Berlusconi match just four days before the season kicks off. Other teams have already been reinforcing their squads and are clearing out their other players. But it feels like Milan are setting Fonseca up to fail for some reason. And while he may or may not need any help with that, or he may surprise everyone and succeed in spite of them, after a tumultuous year of so many changes, our management is still the biggest concern, even as the Paulo Fonseca Era begins.
This post inspired by the music of U2's "Drowning Man"