AC Milan face the difficult trip to face Dinamo Zagreb knowing that they must rack up their second win of their Champions League group stage campaign to keep alive hopes of progressing.
It will certainly be a tougher task than the 3-1 victory at San Siro against the Croatian champions when Olivier Giroud, Alexis Saelemaekers and Tommaso Pobega scored, because Dinamo haven’t lost at home in any competition in 2022 and they too still have dreams of making the last 16.
There will be a number of key battles across the pitch starting with perhaps the most decisive as Rafael Leao will square off against Dinamo’s right centre-back Stefan Ristovski. The 30-year-old did a good job of keeping the Portuguese winger quiet at San Siro as he did not score but did manage an assist, and with probably more emphasis on transition play the hosts will have to avoid Leao getting in isolation tonight.
For the home side it is undoubtedly the front two who carry the bulk of their threat and Mislav Orsic will look to score against Milan again having netted the goal that temporarily halved the deficit at San Siro last month. He has 6 goals and 4 assists in 12 games played in the 1. HNL this season, so Simon Kjaer will be in for a tough evening.
After having rested him in the win over Monza at the weekend, Milan expect more from Olivier Giroud and he will hope to build on the goal he scored against Dinamo from the penalty spot last month. The 22-year-old Josip Šutalo will be tasked with stopping him, and he has just returned from injury which perhaps adds some doubts.
The 28-year-old Josip Mišić will be the defensive midfielder in the trio for Dinamo, and he has an interesting background given he has spent time in Italy with Spezia and actually played against Milan for Rijeka in the Europa League. Charles De Ketelaere will have the double role of limiting his influence in the build-up phase and will also aim to create for the Rossoneri, perhaps even scoring his first goal.
Finally, Ismael Bennacer will be hoping to continue his recent trend of impressive performances in the double pivot, and the Algerian will be up against 31-year-old Dinamo veteran Arijan Ademi who plays a box-to-box role for the Croatian champions. Ademi actually served a two-year doping ban a few years ago, and scored twice in the qualification stages for this year’s UCL.
