Pedro Gonçalves, now coach of Angola, coached him for two years in Lisbon. “You often wondered what he was thinking about, but he was already scoring by discarding everyone. Milan must lock him down”
Leao’s slaloms are born from a rebuke. From a coach capable of going beyond appearances and seeing Rafa with different eyes. “Everyone else, when they looked at him, saw an anarchist, but I saw potential never seen before, so I convinced the upper management not to let him go”. Rafa risked saying goodbye to Sporting at the age of fifteen, after a shady season in the Under 15. If he became Milan’s dribbler, he also owes it to Pedro Gonçalves, now coach of Angola, one of his mentors. “I trained him for two years. I saw him in something that others didn’t see. And I’m proud of it.”
