MILAN (ITALPRESS) – Paulo Fonseca is the new coach of Milan. The official confirmation comes in a press conference from Zlatan Ibrahimovic, senior advisor of RedBird. For the 51-year-old Portuguese coach it will be the second experience in Italy after the two-year period at Roma (2019-21), which ended with a fifth and seventh place. Before arriving in the Giallorossi, Fonseca had led, among others, Pacos Ferreira, surprisingly achieving third place in the 2012-13 season. A result that earned him a call from Porto, only to be sacked after a few months. Having relaunched himself at Braga, with whom he won the national cup, he led Shakthar Donetsk for three years, achieving the championship-cup combination in each season. After Roma, the adventure in Ligue 1 with Lille, fifth place in the first season and fourth in the one that has just ended with qualification for the Champions League preliminaries. Now the task of collecting Stefano Pioli’s legacy. “An honor, a pride, a responsibility. Forza Milan!”, the first words via social media from Paulo Fonseca, who has signed a three-year contract. “We studied well what we wanted, what we were looking for and we chose Paulo to bring his identity – explains Ibra – We want the team to play a dominant, offensive game, and after 5 years we want to bring something new to the players and to San Siro. We studied how Fonseca makes his teams play, how he prepares matches, he is the right man: we are very confident and we believe in him a lot. Furthermore, the team next year, losing two players like Kjaer and Giroud, will be even younger and Paulo has experience with young people, he knows how to bring the best out of them,” Ibrahimovic said. Who also wanted to thank Pioli (“what he did for Milan remains in history”) and also responded to the suggestion of Conte, among the names associated with the Rossoneri bench (“He’s a great coach but he wasn’t what we were looking for”) . As regards the market, “the next step is to strengthen the team to be competitive for the objectives we have. And the objectives are trophies, not only in Italy but also in Europe. Every year you have to play to win trophies. Milan don’t win, Milan makes history, whoever enters here must have the ambition of winning, making history. Anyone who doesn’t have these goals won’t have space. We finished second in the league, we didn’t do well in the Europa League, we are not satisfied – underlines the former striker – But for the future we are optimistic and positive. Last year was a market that served to lay the foundations, next year will be the details market. A club like Milan must have a competitive team and put the coach in the best conditions to do the best possible.” Regarding the rumors about Zirkzee, he comments: “There is room for a new striker. Zirkzee is strong, he plays well, he comes from the Dutch school like me. What if he looks like me? I don’t want to make comparisons. We are looking for the striker and we have a list but we don’t do charity. A club like Milan doesn’t just focus on a name, then you have to evaluate whether a player, however strong, is ready to play with this shirt, to play under pressure.” But Milan’s market will also depend on confirmations. “Maignan and Theo remain, as does Leao. They are among the strongest players in their roles, they are under contract and they are happy. We don’t need to sell to get other players, thanks to RedBird’s work we can bring in strong players and improve.” Having ruled out for the moment the entry of new potential investors (“I haven’t spoken to anyone, nor has it been discussed with Cardinale”), Ibra also made an initial assessment of his experience as a manager. “We work, after six months I already have gray hair…After retiring you have another freedom in life but Cardinale then proposed that I return to Milan in an operational way via RedBird. I made it clear that I would say yes as long as it was a winning project because I don’t accept losing, I want to win and I will win. He replied: ‘Welcome. We are on the same page, we have the same ambitions. We talked a lot with Gerry before starting my third life at Milan, we speak the same language. Gerry is a winner.” Ibra defines his role at Milan as “simple: I work very close to Cardinale, I collaborate with Furlani and Moncada. Everyone has the role of him, everyone is important, everyone has the responsibility of him ”.- photo Ipa Agency-(ITALPRESS).
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