Video: Milan friendly highlights as Fonseca wants ‘leadership’ | OneFootball

Watch the first Milan goal of pre-season scored by Alessandro Florenzi and listen to coach Paulo Fonseca’s evaluation of the friendly against Rapid Vienna. ‘I want to see leadership from everyone.’

The Rossoneri had their first outing of the summer under their new tactician after five years of Stefano Pioli’s tenure.

Florenzi had opened the scoring in Vienna, but Milan conceded a late goal for the 1-1 draw.

Rapid Vienna 1-1 Milan highlights

Fonseca gave his analysis of the match and confessed it was far too early to read much into the performance, especially against a Rapid Vienna side that will play its first Europa League preliminary round tie next week.

“We tried to implement what we’ve been working on in training in the past two weeks,” the coach told the official Milan website.

“We’ve been working a lot on our build-up play and defensively being compact. It was our first match against a team who are in the latter stages of pre-season, as their campaign begins next week. Physically, you could see a disparity.

“The thing that I liked was what we did when we first began to build up play. We did some interesting things. A bit of continuity was missing in our play, but as I said, that’s OK.

“Everything is new. There’s been a big change. Obviously, the players don’t know everything yet. The thing I liked the most was the fact that the players tried to do what we’ve been working on in training.”

Much of the squad is still away after international duty at EURO 2024 and the Copa America, including new striker Alvaro Morata.

“We need the players to have a real connection. Communication is important, because when we defend, we are dependent on each other. Communication is important,” continued Fonseca.

“I want to see leadership from everyone on the pitch. I want the players to understand our way of playing and the moments of the game. I think they’ve started to understand in their first friendly.”