Saturday's 3-3 draw away to Cagliari was a harsh return to reality after Milan's miraculous performance in the Champions League vs. Real Madrid. While those of us who have not blindly accepted the results of two great performances in 15 matches understand the limitations and failings of Fonseca at this level, it is still possible to be disappointed that he is still here when other teams with comparable performances or results have already changed their managers at least once. Of course, we should not be surprised with a management that have practically zero experience at their positions and have shown us their incompetence time and time again. However, watching this match was still incredibly annyoing. Are we really doing this still?
 |
| Even the players look tired of this same old story. |
Cagliari literally scored from a set piece barely one minute in. 1-0 Cagliari. Fonseca is heralded as some kind of hero for his beyond punitive benchings of Leão for over two months, but has even admitted himself that it was perhaps the wrong approach. So when Leão chipped the ball over Sherri, the goalkeeper, in the 15th minute from an equally impressive pass from Reijnders to equalize, people wrongfully gave Fonseca credit for his horrible man management instead of giving credit to Leão. 1-1 all.
Leão celebrates his first goal after exile.
Maignan followed that up with a save on Luperto's attempted header, and in the 28th, Cagliari seemed to have scored again, but Piccoli was confirmed to have been offside by both the linesman and SAOT (Semi-Automated Offside Technology) with a VAR review. Fabbri, the referee in this one, had some interesting calls, such as the one in 34th, where Zortea clearly tripped Pavlović, but not only did he not make the call, he implied that Pavlović was diving. Forget the call, that was an insult to Pavlović's honor, who is more likely to put a teammate in the hospital for a head injury (i.e. Morata) than he would ever simulate something.
In the 39th minute, Maignan denied Zortea again from relatively close range. Then Leão, whose limited playing time and oppressive man management had only allowed him to score one goal prior to this match, sped away from his defenders, ran around the goalkeeper, and slotted it home for his second in this match alone. 2-1 Milan. He celebrated by announcing the birth of his twin sons, Leonardo and Thiago, with both of his thumbs in his mouth to indicate his babies. Congrats to both he and his partner. Two goals for his two boys, and his 50th Serie A goal as well.
Leão announces the birth of his twins in the best possible way... with a twin set of goals.
There was a bit of a scare as Piccoli came studs into Maignan's thigh as Maignan put his body on the line to stop the Cagliari man again. But after some treatment, he was able to play again. In the second minute of stoppage time before the half, Zappa scored a goal and celebrated with his team, but after a VAR review, yet again, SAOT showed that there was an offside infraction, and it was also disallowed. I would love to see a stat as to how many opposition goals Fonseca has been the beneficiary of having been disallowed by VAR, as well as how many points he's managed to salvage due to referee and VAR contributions. Because Milan have been very, very blessed thus far this season in this sense.
The second half started off with complete clarity – Zappa finally got his goal in the 53rd minute, without any doubt. 2-2 all. Fofana was shown one of two yellow cards in the entire match for a foul on Viola. Then, in the 65th, Fonseca made his first subs. While it was hoped that this would be Camarda's night, with his first start for the first team also being a milestone, he had been unable to contribute much to the match statistically. He was replaced by Tammy Abraham, still recovering from his shoulder injury, and Chukwueze was replaced by the giant Loftus-Cheek.
Camarda worked hard, but was unable to get on the scoresheet.
Fonseca's substitution paid off right away, as Tammy Abraham scored in the 69th minute with an assist from Pulisic. 3-2 Milan. While it looked like Milan were prepared to defend their lead, Fonseca insisted on making the rest of his substitutions in the 81st minute, and they dramatically changed the structure and determination, not to mention the quality of the team. His substitutions were Okafor for Leão (which, of course, for Fonseca, are the same,) Musah to replace Pulisic, and Tomori to replace Emerson Royal, which at least was a step up, but strange to change the back line like this in the final ten minutes when you are looking to not concede.
And so it was, in the 89th minute, Zappa scored an incredible goal to equalize once again. 3-3 all. Things were a bit frantic from that point on, and in the 91st minute, Theo was shown a yellow card for a foul on Luvumbo. But Milan were unable to come up with a goal winner, with Fonseca having removed all his creative players and best goalscorers. Unnecessarily dropping two more points against yet another relegation-threatened side.
Tammy Abraham's return to scoring was nullified by a relentless Cagliari attack.
I have so many problems with this club and with this manager right now. First of all, that this management specifically went out of their way to hire a foreign manager is beyond ridiculous. There are more top managers from Italy than from any other nation, and Italian football is renowned for its defensive prowess. That they should sack an Italian manager and hire a foreign manager to fix their defensive problems (instead of just replace the defensive midfielders and defenders they sold/let go in the first place) demonstrates the immense depths of their lack of knowledge about football.
Secondly, Fonseca himself. He complains about Serie A nonstop, the league he was hired to manage in, a league he managed in before, and about how it's the only top league that uses man marking, so he has to prepare differently for every single match. First of all, that's your job, and if you didn't like it, you shouldn't have applied to coach in it. Secondly, there is a reason that Serie A has the best defenses in the world, so maybe you should change your ideas about zonal marking vs. man marking.
Chukwueze's face is my face every time I see that Fonseca is still here.
But he continues to try to force his team to learn and play his football, his zonal marking defense, despite playing Serie A teams for 38 weeks of the year, who apparently all use man marking, according to his incessant diva complaints. He thinks he is some kind of footballing genius, when he is literally just naïvely shooting himself in the foot week after week, and his pride is taking the team down with him.
To further illustrate this point, there are only two teams in the Champions League who have not conceded a single goal in the first four matches. Both are Italian teams with Italian managers who use man marking defenses. Meanwhile, Fonseca's Milan have conceded 20 goals in 15 matches in all competitions, and he complains that the team were simply "not aggressive enough." Keep in mind that Cagliari had two disallowed goals as well. That would have been five goals in this match alone. I think there are more problems than simply aggression.
Aggression does not seem to be the issue. Milan already have 3 red cards in Serie A alone.
I'm sorry, but didn't he start out the season saying that his football was "possession based," and that the key to a good defense was to simply maintain possession? Not being aggressive? Yet the two best performances this team have had were against Inter and Real Madrid, where both teams had more possession than Milan and took 13 and 23 shots against the Rossoneri respectively. So is he really some kind of a tactical genius? Or did he just get really lucky two times? Against Inter, the players themselves mentioned having spoken to one another and motivated themselves. Was it really anything he even did?
So his tactics have hurt the team, his own words and ideas contradict themselves, and the best results negate his self-claimed tactical ideas altogether. But that is not even what is so disturbing to me. What is disturbing are all these insidious mind games he has played with our players and the media, benching them, calling them out, and then allowing people to claim their success was due to his interventions. What if Rafa Leão's brace was simply due to him finally being allowed to play 81 minutes in a single match, after only being allowed to play 188 minutes in the five matches prior to Real Madrid (of 450 minutes?) Because statistically, that is more likely.
Paolo Fonseca, Charlatan.
I cannot and I will not give that man credit for "inspiring" Leão's performances by benching him since the Lazio match at the end of August, especially while he continues to bench a healthy Calabria while allowing Emerson Royal to traipse about on the pitch and concede goal after goal after the same exact goal over and over and over again. And I know he was not at fault for all of them, but many of them started on his side, and he has been very poor defensively. What has Fonseca actually done? Especially defensively? Was he ever a step up from what we had?
The truth is that Fonseca has been and always will be a poor man's Pioli. His ideas are incredibly limited and entirely inflexible, while his experience is considerably less. He has none of the class and much less of the charisma than Pioli has, and apparently none of the character or man management skills, either. Sure, the injuries have improved slightly since last year, primarily because he's punitively benched our best players for so many matches.
 |
| I have nothing personal against Emerson Royal, but he is not the defender we needed. |
Results-wise, Fonseca has taken the second place team down to seventh, while four of the six teams ahead of us also have new managers, but are doing far better than him (as are some of the managers of teams below us, to be fair, if you consider expectations.) While Marco Giampaolo was literally hired this week to manage again in Serie A, other clubs have sacked managers who have done much more for their clubs and/or were performing at or above expected levels than Fonseca. This appointment was not an improvement on what we had, it was a step backward.
I know this management are inept. I know they only had one chance to get this appointment right, and they got it completely wrong. That was obvious from the first moment we were linked with Fonseca. But they have had numerous chances to try to atone for their error and salvage this season by hiring anyone else. Even Giampaolo. Instead, they have continued to trust in what many consider to be just a mediocre manager. However, the psychological damage he is doing, particularly to our most valuable players and those who are up for renewal, may be irreversible. Either way, it has greatly impacted Milan's chances of winning anything this season, let alone qualifying for next year's competitions, and only gets worse the longer we keep him. Are we really doing this still?
Milan Primavera Get a 2-0 Win at Home vs. Cagliari Primavera
Liberali and Bonomi combined for both goals in this match.
While the first team battled their counterparts for a point in Sardinia, Guidi's boys took care of Cagliaria Primavera with a 2-0 win at the House of Puma in Milano. Liberali scored his first goal for the Primavera in the 27th with an assist from Bonomi, and then Bonomi scored just four minutes later with an assist from Liberali to make it 2-0 for the home side. This was the Primavera's third consecutive win in the League, and also put them at the top of the table for the international break. Brief highlights are available for this match.
Bonera's Milan Futuro Get Another Point in a 2-2 Draw vs. Arezzo
The 32 year-old former Inter youth player, Samuele Longo, scored his first goal for Milan Futuro
Milan Futuro took a point in their 2-2 draw with Arezzo on Sunday. After Samuele Longo scored his first goal for Futuro to put them ahead 1-0 in just the 8th minute, they conceded a goal to Arezzo in the 28th. Jiménez scored another fantastic goal, his second in as many matches, to put Milan ahead again in the 39th minute, 2-1 Milan Futuro. Bartesaghi was unfortunately injured in the 42nd and was replaced by Paloschi. They were able to hold onto the lead until the 88th minute, when they finally conceded an equalizer. Torriani in goal also saved the last chance of the match to keep the point for Futuro. Highlights are available on the Serie C YouTube channel as always.
Jiménez scores another fantastic goal, but will be suspended for the next one for card accumulation.
Questions about keeping Bonera on as manager continue as Milan Futuro continue to languish in 18th with only two league wins, despite two games in hand. Juventus Next Gen recently replaced their manager for similarly poor results, so it is clearly not just about the young players. This week will be a tough 10 days for Milan Futuro, as they face Pescara away on Thursday in the first of their makeup matches rescheduled due to the international breaks, then will play again on Sunday, hosting Sestri Levante. Then they also face fourth place Torres in the Coppa Italia Round of 16 on Wednesday, then play their regular league match again on the following Sunday. Even if management are not asking the right questions about their choice of managers, the team will need to come up with some answers amidst this busy schedule as they are still in the relegation zone approaching the halfway mark of the season.
This post inspired by the music of Garbage's "Not My Idea"
Serie A Week 12
Reviewed by Elaine
on
10:00 PM
Rating:
