The first round of the Europa League quarter-final tie went to Roma as they claimed a 1-0 victory at San Siro against AC Milan last night.
As this morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) writes, a different Milan will be needed at the Stadio Olimpico next Thursday night if they are to secure passage to the Europa League semi-finals.
The Rossoneri did not play the match that the sell-out crowd expected. Apart from a few odd exceptions such as Tijjani Reijnders and Samuel Chukwueze, who came on and did well at end of the match, all the players disappointed, especially the leaders like Rafael Leao and Olivier Giroud.
Unrecognisable Milan
Stefano Pioli did not find a way to free himself from the web that Daniele De Rossi built, but the main culprits are the players, who were truly way off the pace last night compared to recent weeks.
Luckily for Milan, the tie remains open because it is still only a one-goal game, but a different Diavolo entirely will be needed to overcome the Giallorossi in what will be a very hostile Olimpico.
In particular, there will be a need for an inspired Leao as in recent weeks and not the soft and transparent one of yesterday, who among other things went off amid jeers.
However, it remains to be understood whether they were for his performance or for the fact that Pioli brought him off when his team needed a goal, which speaks volumes in itself.
Big chance goes begging.
The first leg was decided by a goal by Gianluca Mancini from a corner in the 17th minute of the first half, with Roma’s threat from set pieces having been highlighted pre-game.
From that moment, the away side’s performance was on the right track: De Rossi’s team in fact closed up entirely in defence and tried to make themselves dangerous on the counter-attack.
Milan found very little space, but still created some chances, especially with Reijnders’ shots from outside the area. However, the big chance came at the end for Giroud.
He was a few yards out and he somehow hit the crossbar after a splendid run from Chukwueze. The return match at the Olimpico is scheduled in a week and Milan will have it all to do.
Pioli is great coach. We bully weak team and win possession againts big team. We should keep Pioli, so the trend can continue. We will win againts Sassuolo then win possession againts Roma.
Games won by result pal
But Pioli give us runner up in Serie A by bullying the weak. We should keep him, even without trophy.
With big spending next summer (same with last big spending) we still can bullying the weaker side next season.
Regardless of what might happen in the return leg, we might get the win, it’s sad to see that years later, with many losses conceided, we still don’t seem to have a solution against teams who sit back, tighten spaces and press us once we get in their half. Inter and Atalanta do or did sometimes play in this fashion and the results were catastrophic for us. This style of play especially nullify our left wing.
Maybe we didn’t deserve to lose yesterday, considering the questionable goal and the fact that we missed sitters, but you could also say that Roma did sit back even more in the second half and were not looking to emphasize on their win anymore.
The problem also when analyzing these types of teams is that we always have more shots on target, more possession,… creating an illusion that we did play well and that our losses came to individual mistakes which is not the case.
Again we might hopefully make it the semi-finals, but it’s still dissapointing to see that after almost 5 years with the same coach and with an ever changing squad, there is this formula than can allow so many teams to beat Milan.