Ignazio Abate, former AC Milan full-back and now coach of the Rossoneri Primavera team, has granted an interview to those at La Gazzetta dello Sport. Here are his words:
"I thought I would become a director, in fact I completed the sports director course. The only one who didn't believe was my wife. She told to me 'You will be a coach', and I replied: 'No, impossible'. I signed up for the course just to complete the training and it was love at first sight. Butterflies in the stomach, a vocation that takes your head. Sometimes someone talks to me and I stare into space: I'm thinking about the match or the team."
On the Milan Primavera season so far:
"I am convinced that we are laying the foundations for the future of the Primavera. I love building from behind and having the ball because you improve with the ball. And I let the very young play, without fear of sending them onto the pitch with the older ones."
Abate on central defender Andrei Coubis being the captain:
"I wanted to make him responsible. He speaks little but I think he can push the group forward.
On Marko Lazetic who scored a hat-trick against Atalanta:
"I'm happy. He is humble, he has a positive attitude: he is an example for all his companions."
On Chaka Traoré and if he can play with the First Team in Serie A?
"He has above average qualities and physical qualities. He can score 20 goals a year but he has to find continuity."
On Youns Gabriele El Hilali:
"Now he has responsibilities: he is the vice-captain. I expect a lot from a mental point of view, to help his teammates grow."
Abate on the potential of Hugo Cuenca and Filippo Scotti:
"Cuenca was unlucky, he arrived without preparation and got hurt, but now he's almost recovered. Scotti, well, he's a 2006 class. I took him to the Primavera when he was 15. You have to have a not indifferent personality to hold on."
On Raffaele Palladino (Monza) and Salvatore Bocchetti (Verona) who demonstrate how a coach can move from the Primavera to Serie A:
"Thanks to coaches like them, the level of the Primavera has risen a lot."
Who is your favourite coach?
"Roberto De Zerbi seems to me to be the top. But I am very lucky to work close to Stefano Pioli, who is humanly out of the ordinary and tactically advanced. When I can, I stop by to watch his workouts or have him explain how he will prepare for a match. He opens my mind."
On the young players and how they are compared to previous generations, Abate said:
"They're very different from us, perhaps smarter, certainly with less personal relationships: they are always a lot on social media, but in football the usual rules apply. You have to form a group, have education and respect, know that if you don't suffer now you won't be able to rejoice tomorrow. Some frown at me, then realise I'm doing it for their own good. In general, I feel them close, they confide in each other."
He concluded:
"Football of the future? It will be essential to read the individual tactical situations, which change in a second. And the goalkeeper will be even more decisive."
