Sérgio Conceição warned us Friday that “I don’t like to cuddle,” but sometimes a moment gets the better of you. On Monday night, in Milan’s locker room, he danced, smoked a cigar and, yes, hugged Théo Hernández on camera. If ever there was a time to break character, it might be after winning your first trophy with the club you took charge of a week ago.
Has there ever been a football speed run like this? Hired to replace Paulo Fonseca as Milan coach – a transition so poorly managed that his predecessor ended up announcing his dismissal from a car window – Conceição led his first training session last Monday and flew with his new team to Riyadh a day later. Since then, he has scored come-from-behind victories against Juventus and Inter, giving Milan their first trophy in three years.
All this, with fever. There was uncertainty over whether Conceição would even be on the bench for Friday’s semi-final, during which he told reporters he had a temperature of 39C. “That’s why I have tears in my eyes,” he said after watching his team score twice in four minutes in the second half to turn this game around. “I’m not emotional at all.”
Those eyes looked wet again on Monday night, although this time it might have been because of the gash Emerson Royal had opened on his leg while celebrating Milan’s winner in injury time.
After a slow start, the Supercoppa final turned into an extraordinary match. Inter looked to be cruising when Lautaro Martínez and Mehdi Taremi gave them a 2-0 lead with goals either side of halftime. We’ve seen this story before: the Argentine has scored in this game for the last three seasons in a row and Inter has won every time.
Instead of wilting, Milan responded. Hernández halved the deficit almost immediately with a wicked free kick, whipped low around the wall from the edge of the D and into the bottom left corner. The match changed its face, with both teams attacking with a goal and a directness that was lacking in the first half.
Golden opportunities were missed to equalize. Christian Pulisic headed straight at Inter goalkeeper Yann Sommer and Alessandro Bastoni blocked a Tijjani Reijnders cannonball with his face. Carlos Augusto hit a post at the other end of the field.
Milan finally equalized in the 80th minute, when Hernández beat his man on the left and cut the ball back for Pulisic to score. The match looked set for penalties after Denzel Dumfries missed another chance for Inter. But in the third minute of added time, Milan created a brilliant winner.
This time Pulisic was the initiator, cutting sharply from the right and sending a pass behind two defenders for Rafael Leão to attack the box. He sent the ball inside, lifting it with one touch above Sommer and Yann Bisseck’s sliding challenge. Tammy Abraham converted to the middle.
A goal worthy of winning a final. Worthy of winning a derby.
These clubs have always had a habit of measuring their success against each other, but in recent years this trend has been particularly pronounced. Milan’s decision to fire Stefano Pioli, the man who led them to their last Serie A title, after a second-place finish this summer, had been brewing since his side lost meekly to Inter in the semi-final of the Champions League 2022-23. .
It was the furthest they had gone in the competition since 2007, but the Ultras called the players under the Curva to reprimand them over their level of application during a championship match between the two matches. Worse was to come a year later, when Inter sealed their Serie A title with a derby victory – also becoming the first of the Milan sides to reach 20 Scudetti and win a second gold star for the crest of his club.
Winning the Supercoppa won’t erase this piece of history, but doing it this way at least felt like the kind of blowback fans so desperately craved. Inter have dominated this match for over a decade. Monday’s victory marked the first time since 2011 that Milan had won two derbies in a row.
The first of these arrived under Fonseca, in September, and proved to be a false dawn. Perhaps we will end up saying the same thing about this result. Yet there was something about the way Milan’s two performances in this Supercoppa suggested a new state of mind, a dissipated sense of complacency.
Conceição, a serial winner in Porto, where he won 11 titles, including three league titles in seven years, has forged his image as a relentless master builder. His speech about the lack of hugs is part of the brand. “The players have accepted that I don’t smile a lot,” he added last week. “I like it because I’m not here to make friends, but to win.”
He backed those words with action, putting Milan players through a double training session the day before their clash against Juventus. He of course wanted more time to implement his tactics, but he also set expectations for his team.
We only have first impressions of these two matches, but it was striking to see Hernández and Leão, two players who never saw eye to eye with Fonseca, immediately make game-changing contributions. The Portuguese, replacing in the second half against Inter after missing the semi-final due to injury, made his first appearance in 2025.
Conceição described his compatriot as a “phenomenon”, saying: “He needs to learn a couple of things but if he does he can be the best in the world. He has everything, and I’m not just saying that to be nice. He has so many qualities and if he puts them at the service of the team, he will be even better. In my opinion, he will be one of the best in the world by the end of this season.
It was easy to lean into hyperbole on a night like this. Conceição said his players insisted he smoke the cigar – recreating a famous scene from his final title celebrations with Porto in 2022.
But the Supercoppa is not the same as a championship triumph. Milan are eighth in Serie A, eight points behind the top four. They need to remember how to achieve consistent results, and not just big results, if they even want to secure a new place at the top of Europe. The Rossoneri are at least in a reasonable position to progress in this year’s Champions League, sitting 12th in the 36-team group stage.
“From tomorrow we will think about (the next Serie A match against) Cagliari,” Conceição said. “Milan’s place is not seventh or eighth, but among the leaders.”
theguardian