“January is already decisive.” Title like this Franco Ordine the fund written and published by today’s edition of Corriere dello Sportobviously dedicated to Milan and others Sergio Conceicao. Below is an excerpt from the editorial: “The exams, which in football as in life never end, begin now for Sergio Conceiçao, already capable – as Leao says – of transmitting “an overwhelming energy”. Because the month of January can become the springboard to climb some positions in the standings (Cagliari, Como and Parma plus Juve the next stages), secure Champions League qualification (Girona and Fabio Cannavaro’s Dinamo Zagreb appointments) or transform the blitz in the desert into a mirage, capable of showing what isn’t there. It’s true: this time the indispensable chemistry between the coach and the full squad seems to have intervened.
Even those excluded from Fonseca, for example Calabria (involved in the award ceremony by captain Maignan), Tomori (recovered from the case and deleted from the list of probable transfers on the market), have become protagonists, thus recovering the spirit that this team has never had except when, the real challenges along their way (Inter first and then Real Madrid) naturally urged him. Leao, Theo and all the others have taken a path from which there is no turning back.
Here and now we will also have the opportunity to test Conceiçao’s abilities not only in motivating the troops but in managing the essential turnover to face 6 challenges in 18 days, a sort of football marathon. Fofana and Reijnders, right in Riyadh, reported some legitimate tiredness, Abraham offered a vitality in front of goal that Morata has not yet expressed and the new pair of defensive pillars, Tomori and Thiaw certainly cannot play them all.