GdS: Why Leao’s relationship with Fonseca never blossomed and what’s different with Conceicao

SempreMilan

·18 January 2025

GdS: Why Leao’s relationship with Fonseca never blossomed and what’s different with Conceicao

As a general rule, AC Milan are at their best when Rafael Leao is at his best, and this is something the new coach Sergio Conceicao seems to have realised.

La Gazzetta dello Sport begin their analysis on Leao by rewinding to six years ago, when – as a young Sporting CP player – he caught the eye of Conceiçao at the Estadio do Dragao for the wrong reasons, at least in Porto’s case.

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He attacked the space in behind to latch onto a great ball from Bryan Ruiz, so reminiscent of Tammy Abraham’s from Tuesday, and beat Iker Casillas under his legs. Conceiçao watched on, not knowing that six years on he would be his player.

Feeling at first sight

Let’s get to the present, where Leao and Conceicao are often smiling together. From Riyadh to Como, the clues are starting to pile up suggesting that the mood has changed and that Rafa feels back to his best.

Speaking after the Como win, the winger said: “He gave us what we were missing”. The first point is clarity: “He doesn’t like to joke, he’s someone who does what he says. He knows how to push me, I’m ready to listen to him and improve.”

What was missing with Fonseca

The comparison with what came before is inevitable. It is no mystery that the feeling with Paulo Fonseca never blossomed: multiple games on the bench, a constant tug of war and words in the media didn’t help.

Fonseca in June, before being presented to the press, had gone to visit Leao at the national team training camp. It was a bold choice, an investiture of sorts, and he did it only with him out of the Milan squad. As if to say ‘I start with you, the strongest’.

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Instead things did not work out. Rafa in the months under Fonseca’s management often seemed listless, out of the game. Probably also due to a tactical issue, with less open space available to exploit speed and dribbling.

The real Leao was seen in flashes. The coach asked him to do a different job, made of chasing and sacrifices, but the dominant feeling is that Fonseca never knew how to stimulate him. “Seeing him on the bench can be normal for me,” the Portuguese coach said in November.

The wind has changed

Then, there was a break from a communication point of view, as Leao revealed: “I was benched three times and I never understood why.” This runs synonymous with the fact that what Conceiçao managed to give him back was missing: clarity, motivation, energy.

Rafa responded with goals and smiles. In the Supercoppa Italiana, he came on and changed the final against Inter, and also against Como he scored a lovely goal that gave Sergio his first win in Serie A as Milan coach.

What is also striking is how Leao’s way of playing has changed. The winner on Tuesday came via a run that a centre-forward would make, something we never saw under Fonseca. Even though he worked on it with him, he never managed to apply it.

Photo by Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images

Even his personal reaction after conceding the opener was different: the No.10 took the team on his shoulders, moving to the centre, asking for the ball and encouraging his teammates. A sign of a shake-up.

The former Porto manager then praised him publicly: “He is a phenomenon, he can become one of the best in the world. But he must not sit down.” He stimulates him and keeps him on edge.

Conceiçao’s agent is Jorge Mendes, who was Leao’s. Now he is no longer his agent but the two are still in contact: they hear from each other, they compare notes and exchange advice. It is another point of contact, in short.

Sergio and Rafa were born two hours away by car: the coach in Coimbra, the winger in Almada. And again, last year on Mother’s Day Leao took to the field wearing a shirt with his mother’s surname on the back. What did it say? Conceiçao. Who knows if that wasn’t already a sign.