AC Milan will face Inter in the derby at San Siro on 22 April and the mission is simple: to ruin the potential Scudetto celebrations for their city rivals.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) write this morning, Milan want to avoid the worst-case scenario, which is that Inter are able to celebrate the title on that Monday night in their home game.
San Siro will be sold out, like any self-respecting derby, but those who expected an Inter invasion are wrong. The Rossoneri fans have bought all the tickets and there will be no free sale.
The 7,500 seats in the away sector, the second green tier, will be reserved for Nerazzurri supporters, while the rest of the stadium – almost 70,000 spectators – will be occupied by Milan fans.
The situation
A month ago, when Milan started sales for the derby, Pioli and his team were third, 16 points behind Inter. The team had just beaten Lazio after the bad defeat in Monza and the home draw against Atalanta, meaning the gap with the league leaders seemed destined to remain if not increase.
It didn’t happen, because Milan started running without stopping while Inter dropped two points along the way, against Napoli. The gap is now 14 points and the scenario that has taken shape is a tantalising prospect.
If the gap remains unchanged between now and April 22nd, Inter will have to beat Milan in their home derby to secure the Scudetto and a second star on their shirt before them.
In more detail: if the league leaders maintain an advantage of between 13 and 15 points over Milan, they would only win the Scudetto in the derby by beating the Rossoneri; if the distance increased (from 16 to 18 points), a draw would be enough for Simone Inzaghi’s men.
In the event of a wider gap, however, Inter would already be champions before the derby kicks off. This hypothesis is possible but difficult to realise because the Rossoneri would have to obtain just one point in the next two matches, Lecce at home and Sassuolo away, with Inter winning both of theirs.
Why it matters
To ensure that San Siro is almost fully their side, Milan took precautions precisely when it came to sales: another phase dedicated to holders of the Cuore Rossonero Card – the AC Milan fan card – was added to the classic phases dedicated to season ticket holders.
Each fan with a card could purchase up to four tickets, provided that they were intended for other card holders, which was essentially Milan’s way of trying to get a full house before reaching the free sale.
The objective, in fact, was achieved in a few weeks: the vast majority of the stadium will push for every shot by Rafael Leao, for every ball in the area for Olivier Giroud and every time Mike Maignan is called into question by his opponents.
There is another mission within the game: to reverse the horror trend of 2023, with five derbies played between the league and cup competitions, and as many defeats (with the balance of 12 goals conceded and only one scored, in the 5-1 of the most recent derby).
A portion of Pioli’s future will also depend on the match against the Nerazzurri. The club expects a worthy derby from him, as well as a deep run in the Europa League in which another ‘derby’ against Roma awaits later this month.
European nights
The Europa League has become the main objective for Milan this season and as mentioned they will take on domestic rivals Roma in the quarter-finals, which will precede the game against Inter.
We will start with the first leg on Thursday 11th, which Milan will play at San Siro: also in this case, the response from the fans was impeccable and we are heading towards another sell-out.
The same goes for the return of the Olimpico, set for 18 April: the approximately 3,500 seats in the away section reserved for the Milan fans were sold out in an hour.
The fans are always there. In home league matches, Milan have never fallen below 70,000 spectators (the peak with Juve in October, 75,676 paying spectators) and the trend will also be confirmed on Saturday afternoon, when Lecce arrive at the Meazza.
Can’t wait for my first live match at San Siro next Thursday. The stadium was basically sold out in the first day of free sale. I was waiting for the portal to hit the start of sale and still had to wait more than an hour on queue.
We shouldn’t get too comfortable or confident of our ability to beat Inter. They are still on another level and we still have defensive issues that persist that Pioli can’t seem to shake off.
Inter still has a very strong advantage heading into the derby and will more likely than not get a result.