AC Milan captain Davide Calabria has admitted that it stimulates him to play against Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, and was happy with a ‘deserved’ victory against Napoli.
Milan will take a one-goal lead to Naples next week as they beat Napoli 1-0 at San Siro in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final, and it was Ismael Bennacer who got the only goal in the latter stages of the first half.
It was a game full of big chances pretty much from the first minute to the last, but the only goal came when the Algerian midfielder thundered a shot in at the near post to finish off a break that Brahim Diaz had started.
Calabria spoke to Mediaset after the game to try and sum up what was a very intense evening that was full of highly charged tackles and missed chances, with his comments relayed by MilanNews.
“It was an intense match, with many matches in the match. We expected it. The crowd helped us and I think the victory is deserved. We’ll play for it in the second leg, everything is still open,” he said.
“They gave us some problems between the lines at the start. Mike gave us a hand. We didn’t concede a goal against the team that scored the most in the Champions League.”
You’ve grown so much…
“It all started from myself. I worked on what I could improve, even following normal development times. It’s not easy to play in this stadium. Maturity then comes. I’m happy with what I’m doing here. Stimulating to play against Kvaratshkelia, it was nice to be able to face him. I hope the game tie the same way…”
He also spoke to Amazon Prime Video and was asked about why he received a yellow card.
“The referee was telling me and Di Lorenzo the whole game that the VAR was working and it wasn’t working, we didn’t understand each other. It seemed like a penalty to me, at the end of the game I went to ask for explanations,” he said.
“The fourth official was the one who pushed me away, I don’t understand why I can’t speak as captain, and I got booked. It’s a rather stupid yellow but I don’t understand why I can’t speak as the captain, it seems quite useless to me to speak of a yellow card that didn’t fit.”
On the importance of the result…
“It’s still early, there’s still work to do. The job isn’t done yet. We know how their stadium is and how their fans are. Tonight we heard our stadium, it was hard to talk to each other.
“They are a strong team, we will leave with the desire to win the next one even if nothing is finished yet, unfortunately. Now we have to rest that we’ll play again in two days, there’s not much to talk about. We have to prepare ourselves mentally and physically, it’s a very intense period.”
