Milan head coach Paulo Fonseca addressed the media in a press conference ahead of their Champions League clash with Bayer Leverkusen. Following recent victories against Venezia, their local rivals, and Lecce, the Rossoneri are now aiming to secure their first points in the Champions League after their defeat to Liverpool.
Fonseca began by discussing Morata’s fitness: “He made a great effort to play the last match, but now he’s doubtful. We’ll assess the situation. We don’t want to take risks, so we’ll see how he feels tomorrow.”
Regarding team leadership, Fonseca stated, “I want distributed and shared leadership within the team. For this reason, tomorrow the captain will be another player. We have at least five players who can take on this responsibility.”
On his playing style, the Portuguese coach was adamant: “I have no intention of changing our approach. It’s important to maintain continuity, even though we’re aware this will be a different match. I believe it will be similar to the Liverpool game, but we must build on what we’ve done so far and follow up on the progress we’ve seen on the field.”
Fonseca expressed confidence while acknowledging the challenge ahead: “I’m always confident, but this is a different match compared to Liverpool. We’ve done well in recent league games, but Serie A is very different from the Champions League.”
He then addressed perceptions of Italian teams in Europe: “Today I was sent Xabi Alonso’s words, and what I always notice is that when people talk about Italian teams in Champions League, they always say Italian teams are good at defending and counterattacking. I like that people say my team is different; we don’t want to play that type of game. We’ll be playing against a very strong team, but when we have the ball, we want to play.”
Commenting on Atalanta’s approach against Leverkusen, Fonseca said: “I watched the match, which shows how difficult Serie A is. Leverkusen faced a team that defends man-to-man. Only in Italy do we do this; when you play man-to-man, there’s no space. We’re not a team like Atalanta; we play differently. Watching Milan tomorrow will certainly not be the same as watching that Atalanta, which created many difficulties.”
Finally, Fonseca addressed the need to learn from their previous Champions League match: “Against Liverpool, we played a good game, but when you make defensive mistakes against these teams, you pay for it. We made some errors in defense and also in some situations in the final third. We need to learn from these mistakes.”
