mike maignan ac milan

GdS: Milan player ratings for Girona win – trio struggle but four earn big praise

Photo by Mairo Cinquetti/NurPhoto via Getty Images

AC Milan took another step towards getting direct access to the last 16 of the Champions League as they beat Girona 1-0 at San Siro last night.

The only goal of the game came 37 minutes in and Ismael Bennacer had a big hand in it, with his recovery in midfield and pass to Rafael Leao allowing the winger to twist and turn before finally firing in with his left foot.

The result means a fifth consecutive win in the Champions League, and sixth spot in the table claimed. A win over Dinamo Zagreb next week will be enough to seal at least sixth, and direct qualification for the last 16.

La Gazzetta dello Sport’s ratings

This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport has their ratings from the game, starting with the overall performance which earned a 6.5 out of 10 and the management of Sergio Conceicao, which was awarded a 7.

Leao was the match-winner and rather predictably got the title of man of the match in the paper, with a score of 7.5, while his wingmate Theo Hernandez was the lowest scorer with a rating of just 5.

Tijjani Reijnders and Alvaro Morata also struggled to impact the game so they got a 5.5, with Matteo Gabbia, Tammy Abraham, Filippo Terracciano and Christian Pulisic – the latter three substitutions – getting a passing mark of 6.

Youssouf Fofana and Yunus Musah were praised for their battling spirit, being awarded a 6.5. Strahinja Pavlovic put in the warrior’s performance at the back to score a 7, the same as Ismael Bennacer, with Mike Maignan getting half a mark more.

Milan ratings girona gazzetta
Tags AC Milan Milan Girona

11 Comments

  1. This is last chance proof that we need to keep Pavlovic. He has a heart and battle spirit of Gatuzo, something that we lacked for years.

      1. Well Fenerbahçe just acquired Škriniar and I think Pavlović himself didn’t want the move, so I don’t think he is going anywhere, at least this winter
        However, since Emerson got injured, thanks to the decision to start him, this means the management has to sell another player if they want to finance another winter transfer or else we will be stuck with Morata & Abraham as strikers while watching Fofana & Reijnders die on the pitch because of exhaustion or worse, become like Theo. Hopefully they’ll try to sell Loftus-Cheek or Chukwueze or Jović.

      1. So you’re one of the haters who still think Leão is lazy even after he has OBVIOUSLY increased his work rate a lot for the last several games including yesterday. He even said (not just words because he also demonstrated it during the game) that he is ready to die for his companions.

        Pioli wanted Leão to stay up there to collect long distance passes especially from Theo, without tracking back (Pioli did know that it was sort of pointless for Rafa to track back as he wasn’t good at it). Also the defense at the time was great with Kessié shielding it and produced several clean sheets, so it wasn’t really essential for Rafa to track back. Pioli spoiled Rafa into thinking that this was all that he needed to do; Rafa was very young and did what his coach said. But immediately after Fonseca and then Conceição asked him to do more, he complied. That’s not being lazy. That’s being poorly coached by Pioli. A truly lazy player wouldn’t have reacted maturely like he did when he was told to do more, and would have continued to work poorly.

        He was Man of the Match yesterday for all professional Italian football journalists (like he’s been so many other times). This goal, his 65th, made him climb into the top 20 Milan scorers of all time, and he is already the 7th top Milan assister of all time (57). He is the ONLY active player to be simultaneously in the top 20 for goals and top 10 for assists. He is one of only four Milan players in ALL of Milan’s prestigious history to have scored more than 50 times and assisted more than 50 times, together with only 3 others, the legends Kaka, Gianni Rivera, and Seedorf. Think of it. Only these three have done as much as Rafa. Will it sink into your head now?

        Still, there are CLUELESS people here who underestimate Rafael Leão, who is steadily marching into becoming a Milan legend. Arguably with the above stats and the company he keeps with similar stats, he is ALREADY a club legend; and there will be more to come as he is not done yet.

        Leão yesterday scored the winner and got us the 3 points (like he has done many times). He passed the ball with sugar not once, not twice, but 3 times and his companions should have converted, granting him even more assists. Once to Musah (who incredibly didn’t take the shot), once to Theo (who missed a sitter, hitting the crossbar), and once to Morata (who produced a wildly wide shot directly at a defender). He also had two other good long distance shots that he did miss but not by much, and another one on target that the goalkeeper saved. So that’s 7 dangerous balls, with one being converted as the winner, and his companions failing him especially Musah and Theo (the Morata opportunity was less clear, but still). He also helped the defense in several occasions. This is why he earned MOTM as a consensus among all professional journalists. How can a clueless part of the fanbase still underappreciate this player, after all that he has done and still does for Milan?

        Remember, in the recent Scudetto season he was voted by the official league as Most Valued Player, all players considered for all 20 teams. We wouldn’t have won the Scudetto without him.

        Leão’s overall stats for the last three and a half seasons are top 3 in the league. Only compared to his stats, were Lautaro’s and Giroud’s. Again, let it sink. There are like 600 players in the league. Leão’s stats are top 3 or 0.5% of all players. That’s being better than 99.5% of all other Serie A players.

        Do you understand Italian? Read what GdS said of him.

        Do you think Pulisic is lazy? No, right? Guess what: since Pulisic joined at the beginning of last season, Leão and Puli have had almost equal number of goal participations (goals + assists) with Rafa being one above Puli’s with yesterday’s goal. What do you think counts more? Objective stats like goals and assists (last I checked, in football a team needs to score more goals than the opponents, to win) or your IMPRESSION of laziness?

        But no, you call him laaaaaaaaazy! I shake my head.

  2. Loved Pavlovic last night, after a successful tackle in second half he was celebrating it like he scored a goal. We need spirit like that

  3. In my own opinion I’d prefer they sell the likes of Jovic, Chukwueze and Loftus-Cheek to raise funds for the attacking position while i would have love the latter to stay but due to injuries we can’t hesitate to keep such players cause same happens to Pato and Co when they become injury prone they’re sold on the long run so i surmise same should happen now while the backline remain same only if Calabria would accept the terms of the club and not his own terms.

    Forza Milan❤️🖤
    From Nigeria

  4. Luigi, you shouldn’t argue with anyone who don’t recognize something plainly obvious, that is to say, that Leão is a crackin’ footballer and our best player by far. The persistence in denying the obvious is a clear sign of lunacy, and we must not argue with lunatics.

    1. Good points, Gre-No-Li. I find it quite incredible that so-called Milan fans (some of them must be trolls) even insist that we should sell Rafa, without realizing that not only his CURRENT stats are excellent (they always forget to factor in the assists), but also he shares career top stats with very few Milan legends, all time (19 others for goals scored, 6 others for assists, and 3 others for goals + assists). That’s Milan elite status just then and there. Think of it. How many players have AC Milan had since 1899? Thousands and thousands. And ONLY 3 OTHERS (Kaka, Gianni Rivera, and Seedorf) have had Rafa’s goals + assists stats.

      Any other player with these stats would be REVERED by the fan base. So why is it that only Leão gets vilified?

      Lunacy? Sure, but maybe at least for some of them, racism. You know that the “lazy” stereotype is often thrown at black people, right?

      Look at Jovic. With a few exceptions (like yesterday trying to prove his mettle for the transfer market) Jovic is much more static than Rafa; and some other clubs he played for got rid of him exactly because of poor work rate. Certain games he almost doesn’t move, like a traffic cone; he just waits for a ball to come his way for him to try to poach it in, and very rarely tracks back, much more rarely than Rafa. And of course, although he did poach in some goals last season, his production is much inferior to Rafa’s. Nobody considers Jovic a Milan legend with stats comparable to our historically great players, right? However, as he is white, I have never heard anybody from the Milan fan base call him lazy. Why is that???

      You know another player who almost never tracks back, stays static or walking slowly for 95% of a game, only eventually engaging in bursts of speed? A certain Lionel Messi, the GOAT. Have you ever heard of Messi being accused of laziness? Hint: Messi is white too. (No, I’m not saying that Rafa is as good as Messi; no currently active player is and arguably only two historic ones can claim it, Pelé and Maradona; it’s just that Messi’s style of static participation is similar, but he isn’t accused of laziness).

      So, OK, it’s hard to argue with lunatics, and even harder to argue with racist haters because the latter will be completely irrational when their racist bias kicks in.

      Still, I find it so disgusting that I do like to demonstrate the contrary when they start their BS.

      While Rafa is now maturing into a man rather than a man-child, and while he’s been handling criticism better, Rafa is still a very sensitive guy who suffers with the discrimination and hatred that is thrown at him. At a certain point he was so disgusted and tired of it that he asked his agents to explore a transfer to another club. So, if we want to keep him, it is wise to bring down the unwarranted criticism.

      Fortunately, like Rafa said yesterday, Conceição seems to love him. Rafa said that Conceição likes him a lot, and talks a lot with him, helping him as a player and as a man. That wasn’t the case with Fonseca, of whom Rafa said that he barely spoke with him, and he never got an explanation from Fonseca of the reasons why he benched him three games in a row.

      As a sensitive guy, this kind of treatment from a coach and from part of the fan base functions as a self-fulfilling prophecy because then Rafa gets frustrated, unmotivated and his game suffers. Obviously he feels a lot more confident with Conceição and it shows, with Rafa’s game improving, like in the Super Coppa final, and like yesterday.

      No, Rafa will never be 100% consistent. He will continue to have ups and downs with good games and bad games; that’s just how it is for him. However, the ups have been good enough to compensate enormously for the downs as his OVERALL stats prove (it all tends to even out by season end), and the fan base should acknowledge it.

    2. I forgot to add, how insane is this that I’ll recall next? There was recently a dude here at SempreMilan who said that Leão is a Serie C level player and should play in Serie C. Whoa. Like I said, Leão over the last three and a half seasons has had stats that place him in the 99.5 percentile. He is top 3 among 600 Serie A players… better than 99.5% of them… and this idiot thinks he is a Serie C level player. Can you believe it???

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