AC Milan go into their Champions League playoff second leg with Feyenoord one goal down, and need to treat the return encounter with the Dutch side the same as they would a final, the club’s senior advisor Zlatan Ibrahimovic stated on Monday.
With Milan manager Sergio Conceicao making his return from Portugal after attending the funeral of former Porto president Pinto da Costa, Ibrahimovic took his place at the press conference ahead of Tuesday’s game at the San Siro.
Milan lost the first leg of the knockout phase playoff 1-0 away from home, but will hope to turn things around at their own stadium.
“They must approach this with a final, focused, aggressive, and concrete mindset,” Ibrahimovic told reporters.
While playing well is important, winning is more important. Due to a goal deficit, we must win. Everyone must motivate and focus their teammate.
“It starts with individuality and becomes collective. Due to the collective, even bench players must push. This defines a team and group.”
Zlatan Ibrahimovic thinks Milan fans can help the team win.
“For tomorrow, our fans are important, their fans pushed hard in Rotterdam,” Ibrahimovic said.
“But I am confident that tomorrow with 80 thousand AC Milan fans in the stadium and those around the world they will give maximum support to the team, which will then have to take this energy to do the best possible.”
AC Milan defender Fikayo Tomori knows how critical it is to stop Feyenoord scoring again in the second leg, but his team’s response if they concede is just as important.
“We as a team and as defenders take the field every game with the aim of not conceding goals and tomorrow we are already down by one,” he remarked.
“We know our quality, but if we surrender a goal, we must stay focused and believe in ourselves. In the end we know that we have to and we want to win, we have to be focused to get what we want.”
