Ruben Amorim has changed how Milan train in his first week at Milanello, and according to La Gazzetta dello Sport the players have already bought into the new methods.
This matters because Milan aren't just changing a coach, they're changing an identity. The last two seasons under Stefano Pioli's fade and then a fractured campaign left the squad without a clear way of playing. Amorim arrives with a rigid, well-defined system he ran for years at Sporting CP, and the first job of any preseason is getting players to think the way the coach wants before the fixtures start counting. What emerges from the early sessions is that the shift is as much mental as physical.
The most visible change is the schedule. Amorim has the squad training once a day rather than the twice-daily grind most sides put in during mountain camps. The morning session starts around 10:00 to dodge the worst of the heat and spare the muscles, with breakfast by 08:30 and gym work before the players get out on the pitch. This is the same rhythm he used at Sporting, where it worked, so it isn't an experiment.
The detail that tells you what he actually wants is how the sessions are run. Amorim favours drills with minimal breaks, keeping the players' minds switched on throughout. The physical base matters, but the priority is forcing quicker decisions, cutting reaction times and drilling new instructions until the movements in build-up and pressing become automatic. In a system as pattern-heavy as his 3-4-3, that repetition is the whole point.
He has had help from the group he inherited. The players reported back in decent shape and the fitness tests came back encouraging, La Gazzetta note, with plenty of them aware they need a fast start to convince a coach who hasn't seen them play. The squad is still without the ten players away at international duty, plus Luka Modrić, who looks set to stay for another year. The real competition for places begins when they return.
The next test is Australia, where temperatures will be 15 to 20 degrees lower than in Italy. Extra sessions can't be ruled out in those conditions, but the message from Milanello is consistent: with Amorim, the mindset comes first, and everything else is built on top of it.