Former midfielder Hernanes, known as “The Prophet,” who played for Inter and Lazio among others, spoke to MilanNews about the delicate situation Milan is currently experiencing. Here are his statements:
Hernanes, despite Milan’s high quality, the team is ninth in the standings and continues to lose matches, most recently against “your” Lazio.
“The critical point for Milan is that they have an unbalanced squad. They have too many strong players for one area, while in other roles there are good players, but perhaps not at the same overall level of the team. When you have multiple players with similar characteristics, not all of them can play. Those who end up on the bench may not have the right attitude for the situation. It’s a difficult situation; to make a good dish, the ingredients must be balanced. If you put too much of one thing and not enough of another, then the dish won’t be good.”
Is Sergio Conceiçao suitable for this Milan with his footballing ideas?
“His is a good idea of playing. To play attacking football, without removing technical players but asking them to help the team without the ball. Players need to be focused and willing to do this, and the team needs to be compact. Are these players suitable? I think so. However, they need to be more focused.”
Can Joao Felix, Pulisic, Leao, Reijnders, and Gimenez coexist in your opinion?
“They can only play together in abnormal situations, for example, when you are losing a game and need to recover the result. So, in the second half, they can play together, maybe for half an hour. But starting them from the beginning, I don’t like that idea because there are too many protagonists, too many players with identical characteristics. As I said at the beginning, the team becomes unbalanced.”
Do you have any anecdotes related to Milan?
“An interesting anecdote is when I scored against Milan, and we won at the Olimpico. At the end of the match, the Rossoneri players were saying to Robinho: ‘How come you don’t bring these strong Brazilian players to us?’. He told me this story, and it made me very happy.”
Is there a Milan player in whom you see yourself in terms of quality?
“A player in whom I see myself, no. But I like Reijnders, he is the most consistent, he is scoring a lot. I really enjoy watching him play, he does everything really well. He sets up play, gets into positions, shoots, is determined, scores. Perhaps he is my favorite player in Milan.”
Igli Tare is a strong candidate to become Milan’s sporting director. You were one of the signings of his era.
“Tare is great, and at Lazio, throughout his time in Biancoceleste, he always carried out great operations together with Lotito.”
Do you see him doing well at Milan?
“I see him doing very well, but in any team.”
What memories do you have of your shared experience with Tare?
“I remember when he came to Brazil to get me. We went to dinner before closing the deal, and there I got to know him as a person, he made me feel calm. It wasn’t easy because I had to leave my country to go to an unknown place. What I remember and understood immediately was that he was an honest and sincere person, and for me, that is very important.”