AC Milan are back on the European stage this evening after an absence of 18 months, as they take on Benfica at San Siro.
Milan are unbeaten in the league having won two and drawn two, but attention now turns to continental competition and the first game against one of the other favourites to lift the trophy. Benfica have started the season very well under Marco Silva, so it promises to be a tough test.
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AC Milan vs. Benfica: Predicted starting XIs
La Gazzetta dello Sport, Gonçalo Ramos will be the one leading the line for Milan against the team he played for from 2013 to 2023, before his big-money move to PSG and subsequent club-record switch to Milan.
He will be flanked by the youthful attacking midfield duo of Omari Hutchinson – who would be making his first start since arriving on loan from Nottingham Forest – and the top scorer Alphadjo Cisse.
Samuel Chukwueze and Davide Bartesaghi are currently tipped to be the wing-back duo despite Diego Moreira scoring a brace against Lazio (he too is another ex-Benfica man). They should flank the dynamic double pivot of Ardon Jashari and Yunus Musah.
Then, the three-man defence is tipped to be Filippo Terracciano, Koni De Winter and Strahinja Pavlovic. It means a rest for Mario Gila and a first start for Terracciano, ahead of the goalkeeper and captain Mike Maignan.
Predicted Milan XI (3-4-2-1): Maignan; F. Terracciano, De Winter, Pavlovic; Chukwueze, Musah, Jashari, Bartesaghi; Hutchinson, Cisse; Ramos.
Predicted bench: P. Terracciano, Torriani, Tomori, Gabbia, Gila, Diawara, Moreira, Rabiot, Comotto, Saelemaekers, Estupinan, Modric, Pulisic, Loftus-Cheek, Camarda.
Predicted Benfica XI (4-2-3-1): Trubin; Banjaqui, Circati, Lenglet, Dahl; Palhinha, Aursnes; Lukebakio, Sudakov, Schjelderup; Duran.
Predicted bench: Soares, Ferreira, Araujo, El Karouani, Bah, Barrenechea, Manu Silva, Barreiro, Echeverri, Cabral, Prestianni, Rafa Silva, Pavlidis.
ℹ️ The predicted XIs for #MilanBenfica, according to @Gazzetta_it.
🤔 Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/eWaVqWgREo
— SempreMilan (@SempreMilanCom) September 16, 2026
We have lost
Never mind we can bring them on in the second half if required
Nice to saw this line up hopefully we can kill the match before first half to give young comoto ND Canada d chance to shine
this is a very optimistic mate hope you are right but will be tough to kill the game off early with this lineup..
happy to see Terracciano get a start as unpopular as it may be but I dont think he is a lost cause.
This is such delusional thinking. Have you watched this team at all? Have we killed any team off in the first half? Have we even scored a single first half goal this season? No.
And this coach is going with a terrible starting lineup yet again. You know, cause he’s really smart.
lol yea. i mean apart from camarda/comotto, i can argue Amorim has given chances to players who normally wouldnt. I mean, he’s tipped to start with Terraciano. Other coaches (or us) would put Gila in and when we are “winning” put terraciano. It’s funny because that was a reason none played under allegri
Wanted to see Tomori to the right and Pulisic together with Hutchinson from start, but oh well.
Can always hope the media is wrong….
I wonder how bad Tomori’s form is to pick Terraciano instead of him.
We will see them start together, sooner or later.
If This Lineup Is As So. It Will Be A Complete Destruction Of The AC Milan Defence. Benfica Will Win By At Least 3 Goals In The 1st Half
If Benfica does win, Amoron will be gone by Christmas.
apart from Terracciano, i see it pretty solid. Chuck, Musah and Jashari had played well enough. I feel your concern on Terracianno since he’s been really shaky in all starts. But i could’ve said the same on Musah. He was not very good in preseason.
on earth there is no way terraciano should start he is not milan level player what happened to tomori
Nah we’ll be fine as long as there’s no Estu and RLC as starter.
Amorin approach for the start of the game is more defensive than what i thought. Batesaghi does not offer much on the offensive side, this is a formation 4-3-2-1 that can change depend how the game goes on.
excited to see Hutchinson from the start
I guess we fully prioritizing league and thats good but first match in Europe and the toughest one on paper wouldve liked to have seen , from the get go.
Either ways we have very strong players to bring on from the bench like Moreira , Pulisic , Rabiot…
Not sure why they keep saying Benfica are “among the favorites” to win Europa League.
All the betting sites I’ve seen have them around 6th-7th choice.
Only on Kalshi are they close to being favorites….
Maybe now it’s a bit clearer why?
Amorim story again amorim = stubborn
Anyway schjeldrup is great player I hope milan sign him
After Lazio, the 3 players that it would be assumed have to play are Moreira, Musah, and Pulisic….only one is chosen here, and the two with the freshest legs are not chosen. A lot of players seem to be given rest…even though Benfica is a quality team, BUT, the one player who needs rest (Ramos) starts again.
Other than Torino, it feels like Amorim has badly managed his starting XIs and this feels know different.
I’m glad to see that Amorim is managing Pulisic’s minutes- 45 mins over four games is a heavy work load. Got to keep the player angry.
Someone needs to tell him NOT to play Pulisic. And then he will…
Espero estar errado mas para mim terraciano não inspira confiança nenhuma,era melhor jogar com tomori
Ok so there seems to be a lot of evidence regarding how Amorim is treating the europa league.
One, he has said and alluded to this is a Plan B of sorts to get into Champions league, so focus is to actually get top 4 in Serie A, if thats the case then he is prioritizing Lecce fixture to (potentially) field a strong (stronger) XI.
It seems either A. he is rotating and believing: its the first Europa league match vs a strong team (one of the strongest in the compeititon) and decides not to “spend” the energy of his top players on a game thats already very hard and maybe not as easy, and take a “free hit” of sorts to then play the Lecce game and really put the strongest squad for that game.
OR B. has decided that the the route to champions league is exclusively Serie A and will only focus on Serie A and leaving Europa as a let others play.
Second, he actually wants to prioritize Europa, and he is planning on “experimenting” vs Benfica to see what caliber Milan is at playing without our strongest team, again, treating this game as a “free hit”. He doesnt want to risk putting the strongest XI today with risk of injury, exhaustion, or bad play whoch then forces him to play a depeleted or not so strong team vs Lecce, increasing chances of not winning that game.
IDK, but we will have to see tonight.
Or he’s just an idiot who can’t evaluate talent and has no idea who his best players are.
pls send terraciano to futuro. Tomori is much better
0-2 at half time.
I don’t understand saving players for the Lecce game. Really? Benfica is much better. Amorim talks a good game but doesn’t make sense when you think about it.
This doesn’t make any sense. Torrecciano should be in serie B. Maybe he’s got a plan but damn Armorin this feels like a dumb move
definitely the Armorin show. It would be nice to see the best 11 of both teams play each other.
Also a missed chance to getting a good starting eleven used to playing together.
The only thing this proves is that Portuguese league is truly a farmer’s league. Why wouldn’t you start your best 11???
Tomori is better in that Terreciano department, but the coach has the final say.
Amorim likes pushing his luck. What happened to Timori ? If I say he is a clown. Some clown will jump to his defense….😡