‘Too much of a manager’: The real reason Milan did not consider Antonio Conte | OneFootball

After AC Milan’s defeat to Napoli on Tuesday night, questions have once again resurfaced regarding why Antonio Conte was not hired.

Conte was the coach that some Milan fans had loudly called for during the summer when Stefano Pioli was relieved of his duties, because they believed he represented a step towards more ambitious goals.

He is a proven winner in Italy, and the lesson taught by his Napoli at San Siro on Tuesday night did nothing but confirm the thesis of fans and insiders, who now see Conte’s side 11 points above Milan so early in the season.

Zlatan’s words and Pellegatti’s thesis

Perhaps due to the fact that it seemed to be such an obvious marriage between Milan and Conte heading into the summer, journalists continued to ask questions even during Paulo Fonseca’s unveiling.

Ibrahimovic was asked to explain why Milan seemingly never considered Conte, and his response was that he is ‘too much of a manager’. The Italian was someone that the club did not want/think they needed given the vast range of figures with decision-making power present in the management.

In this sense, Fonseca represented the ‘low profile’ coach, i.e. someone not inclined to exist and potentially thrive within the collegial decision-making scheme, and to not be very outspoken in the media nor demanding in terms of investments.

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Yet so far Fonseca has proven to be much less of a ‘yes man’ than was assumed, even taking difficult decisions without hiding behind some circumstantial declarations made to the media.

The Portuguese has ended up becoming a ‘manager’, also because the repeated absence of the directors at Milanello has left him managing the squad alone.

The journalist and insider Pellegatti explained this concept to Pressing, making a comparison with Conte’s style and how there actually might not have been much of a difference.

“Of course there are regrets. Ibrahimovic explained his no to Conte by saying that Milan were looking for a coach and not a manager. But at the moment Fonseca, for better or for worse, is acting like a manager because he is always alone at Milanello,” he said.

“They say that there are always contacts, but telephone contacts are one thing, the players need to see the directors. The day after the heavy 2-0 defeat against Napoli with Milan at -11 or -8 if they win the recovery match against Bologna, there was no one at Milanello from the management.

“Fonseca, for better or worse, is working as a manager. So to leave him alone at Milanello they might as well have got Conte. He would have come running and with great enthusiasm to the Rossoneri.”

Photo by Francesco Pecoraro/Getty Images

So why not Conte?

Having chalked off the ‘too much of a manager’ reason, now the question remains: what is the real reason that Milan didn’t hire Conte?

As our colleagues at SempreMilan.it explain, the differences between the Italian coach and Fonseca are there and are also well marked. However, they differ greatly from the theoretically ‘managerial’ motivation put forward by Ibrahimovic and the Milan management.

The main, if not only, reason why Conte’s name was discarded by Milan is purely economic. The Salento coach has in fact signed a contract with Napoli until 2027 worth €6.5m net per season.

That is over €4m more than what Fonseca received at Milan, but it is a gap that Milan would have filled by saving on the salary of the sacked Pioli. The Rossoneri management did not terminate the deal with the previous coach so anticipated having to pay him for 2024-25, before he joined Al-Nassr.

The salary factor is probably not the one that weighs most in the leadership’s decision not to focus on Conte. The real difference lies in the market requests that the former Chelsea and Spurs coach made to Napoli once he took office.

In the 2024-25 summer window, the Neapolitans spent a whopping €149.5m on the arrival of six players. Alessandro Buongiorno, Romelu Lukaku, Scott McTominay, David Neres, Billy Gilmour and Rafa Marìn all arrived – with most specific requests from the new coach – while they only earned €11.5m from sales.

On the contrary, Milan were able to back Fonseca with a summer window that cost half of what Napoli’s did. They spent €71.7m, but they were able to collect €33.3m from the exits of Charles De Ketelaere, Rade Krunic, Pierre Kalulu, Jan-Carlo Simic and Yacine Adli, including some loan fees.

Perhaps Conte at Milan – who finished second and not 10th like Napoli last season, something the coach himself pointed out – would have asked for less investment in the Rossoneri squad, but who can say?

What matters is that the signings and sales Milan and Napoli made produces a difference of €100m, which is more than enough to justify – at least in the eyes of the management – how Conte was perhaps not ‘too much of a manager’, but certainly too ambitious to take the reins of this Milan.