Sergio Conceição spoke to DAZN at the end of Napoli-Milan 2-1. Here are his statements:
A Milan side that created a lot in the second half, but everyone will remember those horror-filled first 20 minutes. Why such a big difference?
"Since I've been here, for about three months, I’ve never made excuses about having little time to work. Today, really, everything happened. I woke up at 7:30, and Loftus was feeling unwell and had to go to the hospital. Then I was told that Thiaw couldn’t play because he had vomited, something related to his stomach, intestines. And shortly after that, they told me that Leao was feeling some fatigue in his thigh. But these are not excuses—we could have done much more. The first ball they sent forward, they scored. We didn't play the first 20 minutes as we had prepared. These things happen. I don’t want to cling to bad luck because we could have done more, but today really everything happened. Then, in the second half, there was a very good reaction from the team, which was needed. Napoli never got into our box in the second half, we created a lot of chances, and in my opinion, the fair result would have been a draw."
On the many missed penalties… Who was supposed to take it? Conceicao commented:
"There are three designated players for penalties, and they train for it. Pulisic took it to give confidence to his teammate, who hasn’t scored in a few weeks... We know how these things work. It’s not up to me to say anything to the players—they are the ones who decide among themselves based on how they feel. But this is a good sign, it shows a united dressing room. There is awareness that we should have done more in the first 25 minutes, and there is great frustration because we didn’t deserve this defeat."
This team, with a different attitude and fewer mistakes, objectively, how strong is it? What is its potential? Conceicao replied:
"We had already prepared the match without Leao. I'm not saying he didn't play because the doctor told me something. After the national team break, like Santi, he only trained twice. Actually, Santi only once because he returned with a very, very swollen ankle. Anyway, all these things happen at Milanello, and people don’t know about them. The team has potential, quality. We always talk about balance, and that’s true. If we want to press higher, sometimes we have to be in one-on-one situations in our defensive line—you can't always have numerical superiority if you're pushing forward. They managed to get out of our press too easily in the first half. Then we adjusted and had a different approach. In football, you need technique, quality, but also courage, desire, and the right attitude to be present. Sometimes we have to take responsibility for one-on-one duels. The team has quality, I have a lot of confidence in them. I have a healthy environment within the group."
