AC Milan head coach Paulo Fonseca has publicly made the point that he believes a different version of Rafael Leao will be seen this season, and a report has explained what that means.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) write this morning, Fonseca wants to transform Leao as he explained after the Silvio Berlusconi Trophy on Tuesday night: “I’m very happy with him and it seems to me that he is more inclined to work defensively for the team.”
The former Lille coach has an idea in his head: if Leao memorises the movements that are asked of him, he will get closer to the penalty area and be more decisive in front of goal, having scored 58 goals in 210 appearances for Milan so far.
Boot camp
Fonseca and Leao faced each other when the former was the head coach of Roma and the latter was on the pitch with Milan, but they met properly before the European Championship, the coach went to visit his future No.10 at the training camp of the Portuguese national team.
Paulo had already explained to him what he had in mind then, but the real work from a tactical point of view began when Leao joined the team during the tour in the United States, beginning the process of transformation that Fonseca has in mind began.
It will clearly take time to change the ‘habits’ of the former Lille forward, but the path has been taken and the feeling is that there will never be a turning back. During the first half of the Berlusconi Trophy, Fonseca was often seen barking orders at Leao from the technical area, in Portuguese of course.
