Ruben Amorim reveals what he told his Milan players to inspire their 2-1 victory over Torino. ‘Their concern was not to lose, but this is not how you win a game. They understood that.’
The Rossoneri had quite a few concerning results in pre-season, and took a long time to get into gear at the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino too.
It wasn’t until the introduction of Adrien Rabiot and Luka Modric that they tore into Toro, the France international assisting the first Serie A goal for Alphadjo Cisse, then scoring the second himself moments later.
The Granata did get one back in stoppages thanks to an acrobatic Che Adams volley that looped into the far top corner past Mike Maignan’s fingertips, but it was too late to deny the three points.
The Portuguese coach had said yesterday in a press conference how much he ‘loved’ Cisse, and the 19-year-old showed why with his first goal.
Amorim changing Milan mentality
“It was not just the goal, but the quality that Cisse showed during the game,” explained Amorim to DAZN Italia.
“In the first half, he acted like the most experienced player in our team, with the way he took the game forward. I think we saw one team for the first 75 minutes, then another at the end, we struggled physically. To press the way we want to for 90 minutes, we’d have needed more games in pre-season.
“We are improving some players, we have a lot of players who are doing pre-season now, but we will do more work during the week.”
It was an anxious and nervy game until the breakthrough, so how did it feel watching that from the touchline?
“The passion of the goal is for a coach who celebrated so many Milan goals, and now I am the coach of Milan, so I want to feel that passion in my staff too.
“I think we saw a way of playing that is more similar to what we used to do, but we need time to get this team playing in a different way. However, in the final minutes we were working as a team, suffering and defending, we were tired, but we were a team. That is a very good feeling.”
Notably, when Rabiot did come off the bench, it was to replace Ruben Loftus-Cheek in a more advanced trequartista role, not the one he had been accustomed to under previous coach Max Allegri.
What did Amorim say to his players during the half-time break to motivate them, seeing as they were attacking with more determination in the second half?
“In the first half, the concern of my players was control the game, don’t lose the game, don’t lose it in transition, but we lacked aggression in the final third. We talked about that in the dressing room, they understood that this is not how you win the game.
“It’s not drawing, it’s not waiting for the game, we need to do that in order to win the game. We put a lot more pace into the first 20 minutes of the second half, because again I think we lack physicality in this moment.”
Amorim was asked what made him happiest this evening and what he feels that he most needs to work on.
“The most important thing is to win. We talk about ways of playing, but there is one goal in football, winning. It’s not enough, it cannot be enough for Milan, but we showed some of what we worked on in training and in pre-season, even under stress, and that is a good feeling,” replied the coach.
“We need to work on how to attack the box, how to defend out own box, how to suffer with the ball, so I am happy today because we won, and the concerns will be for tomorrow.”
Diego Moreira was on the bench, but did not have his debut in the Milan jersey, while Rafael Leao was at home nursing a minor injury.
