The drama did not end with the final whistle at the San Siro after AC Milan snatched a late win over Parma on Sunday, but manager Sergio Conceição brushed off his heated clash with Davide Calabria, blaming adrenaline and passion.
Two added time goals earned the home side a 3-2 win, and as the Milan bench raced to celebrate, Conceição and his defender Calabria, who had earlier been replaced, needed to be separated by teammates and staff.
Conceição was clearly upset at something and tried to approach Calabria but was held back before the situation got out of hand.
“I live the matches and in terms of how I live them and how I feel them there is a lot of passion and desire to win,” Conceição said.
“In the end, there was a little extra adrenaline, I was talking about a game situation with Davide and in my opinion, there was one too many words spoken.”
The manager added that he feels the squad is like a family, and he deals with this type of situation in the same way.
“The players know that they are all important to me, like a family. If I’m at a restaurant and my son does something I don’t like, I’ll tell him, there’s no hypocrisy,” Conceição said.
“It wasn’t nice to see, but in football it’s okay. We are not in church.”
This has been a difficult season for Calabria. Against Parma the defender, who has spent his whole career at Milan, was making just his fourth league start of the campaign, and he has also lost the captaincy to keeper Mike Maignan.
Brazil’s Emerson Royal has taken over the right-back role since his signing from Tottenham Hotspur in August and Calabria now has more competition with the arrival of Kyle Walker on loan from Manchester City on Friday.
“It is not a positive year like others have been,” Calabria told broadcaster DAZN.
“There are situations that are not simple, even private and personal ones that nobody is aware of. I don’t even want to talk about it too much.
“I want to end this season in the best possible way for the good of the team which is the thing I care about the most, even more than myself sometimes.
“Honestly, I’m thinking about staying focused on that, having grown up with this shirt. Then there are situations like today that can happen but they are part of the journey.”
>
