Speaking in the studios of Sportitalia, director Michele Criscitiello gave a rather critical assessment of Milan’s elimination from the Champions League at the hands of Feyenoord:
"Conceição took all the blame in the press conference. Theo Hernandez, Leao—these sticker-book stars of the Rossoneri are done. Maybe even Ibrahimovic should say goodbye to this brief career as a director, which probably—actually, definitely—is a role that does not suit him."
Criscitiello then continued to talk about Milan:
"Milan scores after one minute. They give 30, 40 million to Feyenoord to get their striker. He scores after one minute. A ridiculous substitution. And I’m not saying this in hindsight. We were at the stadium, and we said it as it happened—because you simply cannot take Joao Felix off. Now, fine, yesterday Longari made a joke about it, fine, the agent is the same, fine, we need to rehabilitate this player—but not at Milan’s expense. Taking off the striker at 1-0, only to then find yourself in trouble, concede a goal, and have to bring in Abraham while removing your only offensive outlet—that’s anti-football."
He added:
"We said it when Fonseca was sacked: get Conceição. Fonseca leaves, but the patch is worse than the hole. Because you cannot hire a coach who is incapable of managing and reading the game properly."
"The starting lineup, more or less, he got right compared to his 4-2-4 ‘fantasy’ formation—his creativity was enough. But today we are talking about outright disasters, individual ones of course, because if someone takes the field with pink hair, it means the club is absent. A serious, present club would not allow a multimillionaire to step onto the pitch with pink hair. Someone who is already on a yellow card then dives. What justification does Ibrahimovic have for that? Theo Hernandez needs to leave Milan. Leao needs to leave Milan. These cycles are over, long over."
