Champions League, Fonseca in Bratislava: "It was important to win. We could have done it more clearly"

Bratislava, 26 November 2024 – The Milan it risks complicating your life but in the end conquers Bratislava by beating an unstoppable Slovan 3-2. Third seal in Champions League consecutive for the Rossoneri who also today showed their two souls: the offensive phase was brilliant, creating several occasions and leading to goals by Pulisic, Leao and Abraham, the defence was full of uncertainties, having been left exposed several times and exposed to the lethal counterattacks of a jaunty Slovan, without any fear of reverential fear and capable of punishing Milan twice, managing in the final - before Tolic's expulsion - to reopen the accounts. In the end, as underlined, the three points arrived which give tranquility to the team and the coach Paulo Fonseca: “It is very important to have collected three wins in the last three games,” the Portuguese coach explained to Sky Sport microphones. “We also scored nine goals and that is also very positive. Now we have three more games ahead of us that we must try to win. Today it was essential to bring home the victory and we did it.” As mentioned, in addition to the lights, there were also shadows: “I think we dominated the game, even changing many players. I think we did many positive things and there are others that we must improve. The preventive marking was not good and in the first half they had a couple of chances, but then at half-time we talked about this and we sorted it out. The fundamental thing was to win and we did it. On their second goal, the second, the referee made a clear mistake by not giving them a foul. We deserved to win with a clearer result.” Leao also made a positive contribution, coming off the bench and scoring: “I always talk to Rafa. He knows why he didn’t play today, he understood it and when he came on he was decisive. That’s what we all want. I am satisfied to see him with this attitude and this desire to help the team. It is very positive”. Glass half full in the post-match, despite some mistakes, also for Rafael Leao: “We should have finished with more goals for what we created. We need to be more aggressive in front of goal. We left them a couple of chances, they scored and gained confidence. In the end, however, we created more and in my opinion the victory was deserved. The ups and downs? We play a lot of games and have little time to recover. The most important thing is to be more aggressive, play to win and not leave anything to the opponents because in these competitions you have to show the opponents for the whole 90 minutes that you are there to win”. Even with Fonseca there is serenity: “Everything is resolved. He knows that I don't like being on the bench. However, I am always ready to help the team like I did today. We are all happy here. The coach has his ideas that we still need to understand better. The results will come with time”. The conclusion is on the objectives: “Today it was too important to win. There were no other useful results. We did it and we want to get to the top of the table, but there are still three games left that we aim to win. Here everyone is here to play these games”.