AC Milan and Cagliari will square off at Unipol Domus later today, with the Rossoneri hoping to build on their win against Real Madrid. As always, there are five key battles that we should keep an extra eye on.
Paulo Fonseca made it clear that tonight’s game won’t be easy for Milan despite the mid-week win, as Cagliari fundamentally play a completely different football. It’s a style that could be more difficult for the Rossoneri to face, the manager believes.
In any case, assuming that Cagliari will be relatively defensive-minded, there are a few key battles that come to mind. Of course, Milan also need to be careful in their own defence, where there are some weapons for the home side.
The key battles
Starting at the back from Milan’s perspective, Emerson Royal caused a penalty against Real Madrid and will be up against Zito Luvumbo tonight. The Angola international is quite fast and tends to be a pain for his opponents, so the Brazilian needs to be on his toes.
In the centre of the defence, Roberto Piccoli will be looking to use his size in the aerial duels and serving as Malick Thiaw is very strong here, he will surely target Fikayo Tomori. The Englishman is not bad in the air, but has made more positional errors in recent months.
Further up the pitch, Tijjani Reijnders will be looking to roam just like had did against Real Madrid. Assuming that he will be more on the left-hand side, it will be Antoine Makoumbou‘s job to shut down his paths tonight.
Speaking of the left flank, Rafael Leao showed his qualities vs. Real Madrid and the hope is now that he can find the back of the net. He will be up against Gabriele Zappa, who is relatively fast and might put up a good fight.
Finally, and this is the big one, the 16-year-old Francesco Camarda will be up against the experienced 28-year-old Sebastiano Luperto. The latter is very big and strong, so it could be a difficult night for Camarda at least in the aerial duels.
A fast left winger against the slow Emerson does have me worried, despite Emerson’s good showing against Real. Also, 16-year-olds generally don’t do well as strikers against big strong grown men center backs so I worry for Camarda.
I remember Endrick playing for the Brazilian National Team in a WC qualifier against some big center backs. They bumped the otherwise talented youngster to the ground over and over, and Endrick couldn’t do anything as he lacked the muscle mass to fight back. It’s one thing to be talented at that tender age, but it is a different thing to have enough body weight and muscle mass to survive in this contact sport when playing against grown men – and Endrick is actually stockier, stronger, and two years older than Camarda.
But anyway, let’s hope for the best. Maybe Camarda can get unmarked and head in a goal like he did against Brugge but didn’t count due to an offside – he was totally unmarked and would have scored too if he had been covered for the offside by some distant defender; nobody was close to him, so the offside was unlucky as Camarda didn’t earn any advantage from being offside. But the rule is the rule and the goal was correctly disallowed. Hopefully it will be different today.
Forza Milan, and Forza Camarda!