Summer began five days ago, and it has been a month since the last match of last season, yet the Rafael Leão saga has already had more than its fair share of twists and turns. After ending the campaign as the target of the fans' anger (booed and heavily criticised) the Portuguese forward stated on at least three occasions that he wanted to leave AC Milan during the summer.
With no senior club executive present at Casa Milan, no one stepped in to smooth things over, and those remarks were allowed to spread throughout the football world exactly as they had been made. However, after scoring against Uzbekistan, Rafa Leão partially walked back his desire to leave Milan, thanks in part to some special mediation...
Leao's future: Ibrahimovic is stepping in...
At the end of Portugal v Uzbekistan, a match in which Leão capped the scoring with the fifth goal in a 5–0 victory, the AC Milan player said:
"What I know about Amorim is that he's very good; he's a great coach. I'll decide my future after the World Cup."
These comments struck a very different tone from those he made at the beginning of the month. Tuttosport reports that there was a phone call with Rúben Amorim and that Zlatan Ibrahimović himself acted as the mediator between the player and the club. The newspaper's headline reads:
"Ibra's mediation behind Leão's U-turn."
It adds: "Amorim also called him, but in his 3-4-2-1 system, a spirit of sacrifice is essential."
