In last night’s post-match interview, Zlatan Ibrahimovic expressed all his regret, saying that if Milan failed to qualify for the Champions League Round of 16, it was solely his fault.
The RedBird Senior Advisor spoke of a "sporting suicide," and it could not be otherwise, given that the face of this elimination is precisely that of a Rossoneri player, Theo Hernandez.
The Frenchman’s two careless yellow cards perfectly encapsulate his season, which now seriously risks having direct consequences on his future at Milan, still uncertain as renewal talks continue. However, Il Corriere dello Sport wrote this morning that there are many culprits within the Rossoneri squad, not just the Frenchman, even though he remains the main one.
Among them is, of course, Sergio Conceição, who in his press conference tried to justify himself by saying: "I arrived a month and a half ago, yet I'm being compared to coaches who have been here for years. Over this period, we haven’t been able to work with the starters; we've had to make do with a small group of players doing different things. We won the only trophy we could win, we’re in the Coppa Italia semifinals, and in the league, since I arrived, we’ve picked up 14 points while Napoli has taken 15. It’s not perfect; there’s a lot of work to do. But people need to remember this. The atmosphere here at Milan isn’t the best, and the red card proves it: we need to work on the players’ mentality. Believe me, it’s not easy, not easy at all."
Milan, therefore, continues to struggle in finding its own balance and identity. And if even those who are supposed to lead the team cannot find solutions, it means the situation is truly serious. However, as mentioned, it must also be said that last night, Conceição himself did little to help. On the contrary, his substitutions raised many doubts, making the Portuguese coach just as responsible as Theo for Milan’s elimination.
