It was a strange night for AC Milan in their 2024-25 season opener against Torino, as an eerie silence turned to a loud roar thanks to a late comeback engineered by two substitutes.
This morning’s edition of Corriere dello Sport (via MilanNews) writes that there was the risk of starting the new season on the wrong foot because Torino deservedly led the game for a good 60 minutes, even going 2-0 up when Duvan Zapata headed in from close range.
However, it was the changes that seemed to spark Milan into life as Theo Hernandez and Alvaro Morata above all took the game by the scruff of the neck, with Noah Okafor’s volley in added time completing a comeback that not many saw coming.
The match against Torino left some food for thought that should not be overlooked, such as the same issues occurring in the defensive phase. The paper comments that if Fonseca’s his idea is to deploy Christian Pulisic as an attacking midfielder and Samuel Chukwueze on the right, Ismael Bennacer and Ruben Loftus-Cheek will not be enough to protect the defence.
It is true that Youssouf Fofana will soon be a starter in the double pivot, while Strahinja Pavlovic and Emerson Royal could soon come in, but the doubt is that the new signings may not be enough, especially if the set-up remains this way and the four up front – once they lose the ball – almost never track back.
The impression is that this Milan has yet to completely detach itself from the past, for better or for worse. On the one hand the old defect of the defence still persists , on the other there is that thing that often last season served to win matches: character.
Despite a performance decidedly below expectations, Fonseca’s Milan showed a big reaction, coming back in a match that until the 85th minute seemed lost. Morata and Okafor netting off the bench brings satisfaction too, and the starting XI for Saturday’s game against Parma could be different.