Inside AC Milan: Geoffrey Moncada
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00:00 [Music]
00:06 Geoffrey Moncadat, every dream,
00:09 relative to what we would like to be
00:11 as children, what did you dream of
00:14 as a child, Geoffrey Moncadat, and what
00:16 was your first contact with the world of
00:18 football?
00:19 So my first contact with football was
00:22 a game at the ESMONACO. I started
00:24 watching the team, which was a champion,
00:26 with David Trezeguet, Marco Simone,
00:29 Rudolf Giuli, I saw a game and
00:31 immediately I understood that it was my
00:34 path, the work I wanted to do in the future.
00:37 As a child, my father always took me to
00:40 watch games in Monaco and Marseille, and I
00:43 started following and I went crazy
00:47 for that.
00:49 Was there any other team that maybe
00:51 intrigued you a little more, that you followed
00:53 a little more passionately?
00:55 I like Latin football a lot more,
00:57 in Italy I like Italian football because
00:59 at that time there was a player called
01:02 Zinedine Zidane, who was important for us,
01:04 French, AC Milan had many French
01:08 players like Marcel Desailly, also
01:11 George Ouéa, who had played for French football,
01:14 and Spain, of course, Spain, Portugal too.
01:17 You were born in Saint-Tropez, which is not a
01:19 city that has a particular football tradition,
01:23 how did you approach the world of football
01:26 in France in the years?
01:28 I had a grandfather who was really crazy
01:31 about football and he showed me many, many
01:34 games, and so I started to understand and
01:37 see games, players, tactics, in the World Cup,
01:43 etc.
01:45 And just like that, but not from Saint-Tropez,
01:48 I think, because I was born in Saint-Tropez,
01:50 but I immediately went to Cannes, Nice,
01:53 and Monaco, this area, there were always games
01:56 between Cannes, Nice and Monaco, which was
01:58 an important area in France.
02:00 Do you have any particular memories of Milan
02:02 in your childhood? Because in those years,
02:04 anyway, Milan was one of the strongest teams
02:06 in the world.
02:07 Milan had many French players, there were
02:09 always games, you know, French, for example,
02:12 they played on French TV, which was public,
02:15 it was possible to see the Champions League
02:17 games. And there was Paris Saint-Germain,
02:19 Milan, Monaco, Milan. And so I met
02:22 Milan, I went there, I saw the fans,
02:25 I saw this beautiful shirt, and I saw that
02:29 it was a very, very strong team.
02:31 You can immediately see that everyone speaks
02:33 well of Milan.
02:35 From the love for football, which you
02:37 matured by going out on the pitch,
02:39 tell us what role you played and how you
02:41 played it.
02:42 I was really, for comparison, a cat guy.
02:46 I was very, very bad. I wasn't tall,
02:50 but I was very, very bad, I had a lot of
02:53 pressing and intensity. I was born in '86
02:56 and French football started to become
02:59 much, much stronger. And I saw that I wasn't
03:02 bad, but I wasn't a super player, for sure.
03:05 And I saw that other players didn't have
03:09 the right profile to play. And then I liked
03:13 the football world more than being a
03:16 footballer. I always liked the coach, the
03:20 sporting director, the president, because I
03:22 saw that it was difficult to do, and I always
03:26 looked at this type of role.
03:28 Let's also talk a little about your family,
03:30 since we've talked about you since you were
03:32 a kid. What relationship did you have with
03:34 your parents?
03:35 With my parents, I'm very, very close,
03:39 because my father, who is the one who showed me
03:42 football games, who always let me go
03:45 to watch games, to go play football,
03:48 always gave me a little freedom in football.
03:51 His job is very different. He's a gendarme,
03:54 a carabinier, he had a very solid culture,
04:00 let's say, a little military. And then my
04:04 mother also let me, she was not always
04:07 with me, but she always let me do what I
04:11 wanted to do. She didn't give me many
04:14 problems.
04:15 What do you think is the greatest
04:17 teaching your parents gave you?
04:19 They always told me to do the things I
04:21 like and to go all the way. When I said
04:24 I wanted to work in football, normally
04:26 they say, yes, but not a footballer, what
04:28 do you want to do? And I said, I want to
04:30 try something, without knowing. My parents
04:32 really let me go and try the things
04:35 you want to do, try many things, do your
04:37 experience, you have to travel too, it's
04:39 important, and when you do something, you go
04:42 all the way.
04:43 How did your career go on? Tell us a
04:46 little about the stages you went through.
04:49 I studied management, more on commercial
04:52 marketing. It was interesting because I
04:54 worked in a group, but I immediately saw
04:56 that I was missing something, the sports aspect.
04:59 So, at the end of my career, let's say,
05:03 in football and work, studied work, I
05:06 went to find a company, a football
05:09 company. It was an area called Sofia
05:11 Antipolis, Sofia Antipolis is an area like
05:14 the French Silicon Valley. And there was
05:16 a company called Videoprofile, and their
05:20 job was to make videos about the
05:22 footballer and the teams. And I worked
05:25 tactical video and I worked video scouting.
05:28 I started like that.
05:29 When and how did the call from Monaco come?
05:33 I went to Monaco for a year, I always
05:36 waited because it was my club, and once
05:40 at the Diato Sportivo, I got a call from
05:43 Dr. Christian Carsten, he called me and
05:45 told me that he had to have a meeting with
05:47 me because our coach, Claudio Ranieri,
05:50 needed a video analyst match. It was a
05:53 bit general. And I came to Monte Carlo,
05:57 I had a meeting, and after the meeting,
05:59 they asked me to come next week. It was
06:02 very, very fast.
06:03 Did you manage to believe at that time that
06:05 the team of your heart had called you to
06:08 work for them?
06:10 No, I didn't think it was like that. But you
06:14 know, when the right time comes, you feel
06:17 immediately that you have to go. So there was
06:19 no more barrier.
06:20 And so in 2012, your adventure in Monaco
06:23 begins. Can you tell us a little bit about the
06:25 beginnings of that adventure?
06:27 The team was in Serie B, there was a Russian
06:30 fund that arrived, which took the club, and
06:32 they changed everything. They changed the
06:34 coach, the Diato Sportivo, also the president,
06:36 and the coach, Claudio Ranieri, who has the
06:40 Italian mentality, the work, who wants to make
06:43 a lot of videos, a lot of tactical analysis,
06:45 asked for a match analyst. So I arrived
06:48 at the office in Monaco, at the COB,
06:52 Centro Sportivo, but there was nothing,
06:55 there was nothing. There was no computer,
06:57 there was no video analyst, there was no software,
07:00 everything had to be created and done. So for me
07:03 it was interesting, also difficult, because
07:05 when no one comes, there is nothing, you have to
07:07 understand everything. And I immediately had
07:10 the relationship with the coach and his staff.
07:12 And also the dressing room, which helped me a lot,
07:15 because so you can understand the questions,
07:18 the need of the coach, the game that is played,
07:22 when we lose, you see all the things that are
07:24 difficult in the dressing room, and you can learn
07:27 all the codes of the dressing room, which is
07:30 very, very important.
07:31 What kind of relationship did you have with
07:33 this property?
07:34 I'm a businessman, and they left a line of work
07:40 that was to create players, to make players,
07:43 and to sell. Every year they asked to take
07:47 ten players and sell ten. It was more or less
07:49 like that. I think that scouting training
07:52 started like that. Because they immediately understood
07:56 that the club was too small to keep players,
07:59 it was much more interesting to do scouting
08:02 on French players, foreign players,
08:06 and create a laboratory on Monaco.
08:09 In that context, in addition to Claudio Ranieri,
08:12 you also meet another person who recognizes
08:16 important qualities in you to start scouting,
08:19 which is Riccardo Pecini.
08:20 He was more of a scout than a director,
08:22 and he started doing this work in Monaco
08:25 as a director. He likes to see players
08:28 live and also videos, and to understand
08:30 many things. I learned a lot from him,
08:33 because he's not a person who talks a lot,
08:35 but he explains things well. His relationship
08:38 was very professional, and he immediately needed
08:42 a scouting coordinator. A scouting coordinator
08:45 is more of a person who works to organize
08:50 the scouting department. To organize a department,
08:54 there are many people who work, there is
08:56 logistics, there is a database, there are
08:59 relationships to do, it's a very interesting
09:02 job, but we have to start well.
09:05 Riccardo gave me this opportunity
09:08 without putting pressure on me, he said
09:10 "Help me and let's make a more organized
09:13 department." I was alone to do the tactical
09:16 work with Mr. Ranieri, and a scouting
09:19 coordinator also alone. In the morning,
09:22 I worked with the coach, with the staff,
09:24 and with the player, and in the afternoon,
09:26 I went to the scouting department. It was a
09:29 job that was really every day, without rest,
09:33 but very intense and interesting.
09:37 At the level of steps, because it's interesting
09:39 to find out this too, what was step by
09:42 step your video analysis work?
09:44 We understood that opponent-analyst, or
09:46 opponent-analyst, has become very
09:49 important. I worked a lot more on the
09:52 tactical part of the opponent than on
09:55 the video scouting at the end. I saw that
09:57 every week there were at least three video
09:59 meetings with the players, with the staff,
10:01 on the week, to analyze the defense phase,
10:04 the offensive phase of the team, opponent,
10:07 corner kick, all the things, the strongest
10:10 players. It was more general at the end on
10:13 the part of the team than on the scouting
10:16 part.
10:17 How much did you travel at the time?
10:19 How was your week divided? How many
10:21 times did you go to see a game where you
10:23 were interested in observing some players?
10:25 On the week I was in the office to organize,
10:28 to do the planning, to see many things,
10:31 also to talk to the prosecutors, to talk
10:34 also with the sports director. And on the
10:36 weekend, I go for example on Friday night,
10:39 there is a game in the Belgian championship,
10:41 for example, I go here. And after the
10:43 afternoon, Saturday afternoon, there is a
10:45 game, Saturday evening too, Sunday
10:47 afternoon the same thing, Sunday evening
10:49 too. And I go back on Monday, for example.
10:52 It was more or less like that. But when you
10:54 travel, you can also meet other people
10:57 who work on the territory, on the country.
11:00 I met many sports directors, many
11:03 scouts, many scouts, many journalists
11:05 who were also here, who leave you
11:07 information. And I immediately saw that the
11:10 important thing to see the player is 10%,
11:13 because you go on the field, but you can
11:16 understand many things. The family, maybe
11:18 the guy is here, close to you, there is the
11:21 prosecutor who leaves you information.
11:24 So I saw that I had video work to do
11:27 the week, but after the weekend, in live,
11:29 it is very, very important to go.
11:31 What kind of relationship did you have
11:33 established with the players, with the
11:35 team? Because obviously, going to propose
11:37 video analysis also on the opponents,
11:39 there was still a bit of credibility to
11:42 gain in the work you did. And
11:45 how did they react to this kind of
11:47 thing? Which at the time was still a bit
11:49 a novelty from this point of view.
11:51 Exactly, it was a novelty, it was with many
11:53 foreign players. There was a mix of English,
11:56 French, a little Spanish, a little Italian,
11:59 etc., etc. All the players have seen
12:02 that I arrived with humility to show
12:05 the things that maybe we can develop,
12:07 not that we have to, that we can develop
12:09 to become much stronger. And I had
12:12 the good fortune to have scouts like
12:14 Jérémy Toulalan, Eric Abidal, Radamel Falcao,
12:17 James Rodriguez on this team. They ask me
12:20 after the game, "Joffre, come here, show me
12:23 the actions, show me how the player is,
12:25 show me the players I have to play
12:28 this weekend."
12:29 What are the discoveries, let's say,
12:32 that you are most proud of?
12:34 There was Bakayoko, Thomas Lemar, Benjamin
12:36 Mendy, Gibrissi Dibé, there were many
12:38 French players who were here, Valère Jamard.
12:41 And these players are here. We are proud
12:45 because the scouting department, we are proud,
12:47 we worked together, not just me,
12:49 it's not like that. They came to play
12:51 a Champions League game, we won the
12:53 championship, we played the semifinal
12:56 against Juve, which we lost. But it was
12:58 nice to see this group that has been
13:00 coming for three years and that has grown
13:02 to go to the Champions League and win the
13:04 championship. This was very, very true.
13:06 French players, foreigners, yes,
13:08 the Famignols, Manolo Silva, many, many
13:12 players, Juri Tillmans, Sofiane Diop.
13:14 Now they are still playing, playing in the
13:16 Premier League, playing in the big clubs,
13:18 Thomas Lemar and Atlético Madrid.
13:20 We saw it in Caen, in the suburbs of Caen,
13:23 in the spring, for example. We took it like that,
13:26 without Anthony Martial, who was there,
13:29 in B. It was very interesting and we see
13:33 the growth of the players. We always see it,
13:36 every year we see when players learn more.
13:39 Were there any players who maybe
13:42 didn't convince you particularly, but
13:44 then they turned out to be excellent players?
13:48 No, there is a good example who now plays
13:50 with us at AC Milan, his name is Isma Benacer.
13:53 He started at a small club called
13:56 Al Avignon in France, near Monaco,
13:59 and we went to see him many times.
14:01 Ricardo Pecino liked this player a lot
14:04 and we followed him, but he immediately
14:07 went to a big club like Arsenal and he didn't play.
14:10 It's normal because it's a Premier League club,
14:12 it's more difficult. Then he went back to Italy
14:14 and he grew a lot, he became very, very strong.
14:17 He is an example that we must always work
14:20 more, we must always give the boys a little time,
14:23 because it's normal and to take a little step,
14:26 every year to take a step for the players.
14:28 You built so much at Monaco, also personally,
14:32 that at a certain point came the call from AC Milan.
14:35 Yes.
14:36 I ask you, at that point, in that moment,
14:39 what did you feel and how much did it gratify you,
14:42 above all, to receive a call from such an important club
14:45 for all the work you managed to do?
14:48 This summer, when the American fund
14:52 arrived and took the club,
14:56 they called me, I remember, in August,
14:58 to do this work of the Head of Scouts.
15:01 I did three meetings and then I arrived in December.
15:04 So from August to December, you know,
15:07 working with Monaco and thinking about AC Milan,
15:10 for me the choice was already made.
15:12 I had to talk to them, explain, and they understood,
15:15 but it wasn't easy.
15:17 And when Milan called you, and there was also
15:20 a little bit of everything to do, everything to create,
15:23 it was also a very, very interesting project.
15:26 It's true that there is not much distance,
15:28 but at what point did you notice the change
15:31 from moving from Monaco to Milan?
15:34 At the level of work, it is very, very different.
15:37 There is much more pressure here,
15:39 there is a much bigger fan base,
15:42 and between Italian and French football,
15:45 in Italy, there is always passion.
15:48 Everyone talks about football.
15:50 In Monaco, no one talks about football.
15:52 We talk about other things, about cars,
15:54 about restaurants, yes, but not much about football.
15:57 So I immediately saw that we had to do things well,
16:00 that we had to work, find the right players,
16:03 create, let's say, a working process,
16:06 that maybe in Monaco was much easier,
16:09 much faster, here it was important to do a process.
16:12 The difference was like this.
16:15 Speaking of this process,
16:17 tell us a little bit about how you are currently structured
16:20 at the scouting level.
16:22 Most of them are here in Italy.
16:24 It is important to have a few foreign scouts
16:27 because they give you a different vision
16:30 and we can't always go everywhere,
16:33 we can't travel because it's difficult,
16:36 we don't always have time.
16:38 Today my role is technical director
16:41 and today we do more meetings
16:43 and we have all the reports on the database.
16:47 When we did all the work,
16:49 video, scouting live, data, which is also important,
16:53 I speak directly with the staff and the manager.
16:56 So we can talk and say,
16:59 "Look, this right, left, central, interesting right,
17:03 what do you think?"
17:05 There is immediately a relationship.
17:07 We did this on this market in the summer.
17:10 We worked on a profile,
17:12 a profile of players who have to be physically strong,
17:16 fast, powerful.
17:18 It was a bit the type of players we wanted to do
17:21 and then it also depends on the market,
17:23 it also depends on how we can develop the team,
17:26 it depends on the solutions, it depends on the budget,
17:29 but it is important to work with the staff,
17:31 with the managers, because in the end we do the same thing
17:34 and we want to have the same team together.
17:36 It is the most important thing.
17:38 In terms of approach,
17:40 in dealing with a player,
17:42 which you are now used to doing,
17:44 what do you put on the table
17:46 to convince a player
17:48 that your offer is better
17:51 than many others?
17:53 You should know that there is an incredible competition now.
17:57 There are German clubs, English, Spanish, Italian,
18:00 who also work well
18:02 and we are more or less on the same players.
18:05 So I think the minimum is to see at least four times live,
18:09 two games at home, two games away.
18:12 We also need to have important data,
18:15 information on the player,
18:18 the mentality, the family,
18:21 the whole package,
18:23 the global package that we need to understand about the player.
18:26 When we have this kind of information,
18:28 I go to see the game live,
18:30 I can talk about tactics, etc.,
18:32 but the player now wants to understand,
18:34 if I signed in Milan, I want to know a little about the Milan world,
18:37 I want to understand if there is training here,
18:40 but there is a life.
18:42 So I think we have a great club,
18:44 a beautiful city, a beautiful country,
18:46 I can sell this project to players.
18:49 If you come to Milan, it's not just football,
18:51 there are other things that are very, very important.
18:54 And right now I'm happy because the message
18:57 always passes and they understand it well.
19:00 Besides the technical aspect,
19:02 what do you look at more in a player when you go to buy him?
19:05 It is important to talk about this situation
19:07 because the data helps you find players we don't know,
19:10 but in the end the most important thing is to go live,
19:13 because if you see so many things,
19:15 the speed, the rhythm changes,
19:17 you see the strength of the player,
19:19 we must have a good profile,
19:21 physically he must run a lot,
19:23 he must be very solid,
19:25 I like this first.
19:27 And then the mentality and how he speaks,
19:31 how he speaks to me,
19:33 if he likes to talk about Milan,
19:35 if he likes to talk about him,
19:37 I want to understand this kind of thing a little
19:39 because later we take a guy
19:41 who goes to a dressing room of 25 players
19:43 and we have to create a mix,
19:45 a culture all together.
19:47 I always say that the club is much more important than him.
19:51 I immediately talk about this Milan club,
19:54 that the important thing is AC Milan, not him.
19:57 So you can see immediately when there is a player
20:00 who says no, no, I'm a star, no, no.
20:02 No, we don't want to create a team in a group,
20:05 we don't want to make a team with so many different profiles,
20:08 we want to create a group.
20:10 There is a particularly talented player
20:12 in this Milan,
20:14 his name is Raffaele Eao,
20:16 that Geoffrey Moncada had met in unsuspected times
20:19 already when he played for the youth of Sporting Lisbon.
20:22 Tell us a little bit
20:24 how you got to know Raffaele Eao,
20:26 what struck you mainly about him?
20:28 At this time I was a scout in Monaco,
20:31 and I was preparing to do a planning on Portugal,
20:34 in Lisbon.
20:36 There was the Spring Split match
20:39 of Sporting Lisbon.
20:41 At this time there was no video,
20:43 and there was no data on the players.
20:46 We had to go on the pitch and see the players like this.
20:49 And I saw a guy who played number 10,
20:52 tall, fast technically,
20:54 the famous Raffaele Eao.
20:56 It was a match against Belenenses,
20:58 and I immediately saw a player with incredible talent.
21:01 And then we followed him,
21:03 we followed him in the national team,
21:05 we followed him in the league,
21:07 other scouts have seen him for sure,
21:09 but he didn't always do well.
21:11 Once he played, once he played with B,
21:13 with U19, once in the national team,
21:15 once not, it was difficult to follow him well.
21:17 The most important thing for me
21:19 at the end of the academy
21:21 is when the players go to play in the Youth League.
21:24 And for me the step is fundamental.
21:26 When a player does well in the Youth League,
21:28 we can immediately say
21:30 "he will make it, it's very easy".
21:32 And Raffaele Eao did too well in the Youth League,
21:35 he was really on another planet.
21:37 And the whole world of scouting,
21:39 not only Monaco, Milan, us,
21:41 the whole world of scouting saw him
21:43 and said "he will be a strong player".
21:45 And now he plays, he plays well,
21:47 I'm happy because he's a guy who grew up
21:49 in a department,
21:51 Sporting Lisboa,
21:53 now with us in Milan,
21:55 he made a great step.
21:57 Speaking of Milanello,
21:59 I ask you what impact you had
22:01 the first time you saw him,
22:03 in these years, how you lived it,
22:05 and we see you very often
22:07 in the Rossonero Sports Center.
22:09 I do the morning training
22:11 to talk a little with the coaches,
22:13 with the staff,
22:15 I think the most important thing
22:17 is to always feel close to them,
22:19 to understand a little what they need.
22:21 The important thing for me is that I know the players
22:23 because we took these players
22:25 over two or three years.
22:27 I talk to them to know a little how they are,
22:29 to talk a little about the family,
22:31 about their health, how they are physically,
22:33 and about the game,
22:35 because we always want to understand
22:37 what we can do well or better.
22:39 I'm always open to them,
22:43 because I feel a little with them,
22:45 even if I can't do more,
22:47 but I'm with them to understand
22:49 a little about the things
22:51 we can always develop.
22:53 At Milanello, on the tactics,
22:55 I talk with the coach
22:57 because it's important to talk together
22:59 because we don't have time to talk
23:01 just between us, we have to talk together
23:03 to understand the situations we can develop.
23:05 And also with Giorgio Forani,
23:07 who is always with me,
23:09 the head of the team,
23:11 who helps me a lot,
23:13 who leaves me a lot of space,
23:15 and he is also very, very open
23:17 to them and wants to know things.
23:19 He also likes to understand
23:21 if the player feels good in Milan,
23:23 if he feels good at Milanello,
23:25 if he feels good physically, etc.
23:27 It's really important for him and for us.
23:29 I think we can't be sad
23:31 to be here,
23:33 we have a beautiful life,
23:35 really, to work at AC Milan.
23:37 In recent years at Milan,
23:39 there have been clearly beautiful moments,
23:41 but also less beautiful moments.
23:43 In this sense,
23:45 how does Giofframo Cada
23:47 balance himself?
23:49 A season is really long,
23:51 we have to be calm,
23:53 everyone has to work,
23:55 there are difficult and normal moments,
23:57 because we play with a stronger team,
23:59 we have injuries, we have problems,
24:01 there are many things.
24:03 When we win, we have to win,
24:05 we have to respect everyone
24:07 and we continue to work to win even more.
24:09 For me, it is more important
24:11 to be more or less stable
24:13 and always to do the season
24:15 until the end,
24:17 because we still have many games,
24:19 but we have to be more calm.
24:21 You have your eyes on the present,
24:23 but also on the future.
24:25 A new era has started for AC Milan
24:27 this summer.
24:29 What is the idea of the future of AC Milan?
24:31 The idea is to create a strong group
24:33 of players who will work for 3-4 years.
24:35 We need an academy that also brings
24:37 young Italian players
24:39 to help the team.
24:41 This is very important.
24:43 But a project is done in 3-4 years.
24:45 If we make a good team,
24:47 we win things.
24:49 Now we have changed a lot,
24:51 next year we will change 2-3 more players,
24:53 but at least we already have the base
24:55 of the team.
24:57 This is important because we want
24:59 to win everything immediately,
25:01 but we need a plan to do things well
25:03 and to bring players,
25:05 a strong group, every year.
25:07 You have reached a very important point
25:09 in your career,
25:11 but if I had to look back
25:13 and think about when you left,
25:15 what would you say?
25:17 Are there people
25:19 you feel grateful for?
25:21 For what they gave you?
25:23 Or maybe for new visions
25:25 that opened you?
25:27 There are many people.
25:29 We had many directors in Monaco.
25:31 Every year there was a new director.
25:33 I learned more about scouting
25:35 with Riccardo Pecine and Luis Campos,
25:37 who is now the sporting director
25:39 of Paris Saint-Germain.
25:41 I also learned a lot
25:43 from the Spanish director,
25:45 who taught me that the club
25:47 must be a family,
25:49 all departments must be
25:51 connected.
25:53 From the academy to the first team,
25:55 to the scouting, to the medical sector,
25:57 everyone must be important
25:59 in this group.
26:01 This also made me understand
26:03 many things, because if we have
26:05 a club together, we can do many things.
26:07 There is still work to be done.
26:09 Thank you.