In the stadium where they lost the Coppa Italia on Wednesday, Milan saw their chances of playing in Europe next year definitively wiped out.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) write this morning, the defeat against Roma – who were in the running for fourth place and are now fifth ahead of Lazio – is the tombstone on a season that CEO Giorgio Furlani has described as disastrous.
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There is one game left in the ordeal, a home match against Monza next weekend, but now nothing to play for. Milan were punished by the usual individual errors: Fikayo Tomori for the first goal and Mike Maignan for the second.
In short, the match was a snapshot of the season for the Rossoneri, who need to close out this 2024-25 and start next season with new foundations (and new faces). Take an example from Roma and Sir Claudio: the right coach in the right place can make the difference.
Gimenez’s red card
On the night of his 500th game as a Serie A coach, Ranieri gave his team a big hand with his tactical moves and created even more confusion in Milan. Without Dovbyk, the coach abandoned the formula seen in Bergamo, with two attacking midfielders behind a striker.
He used Paredes as a midfielder, Soulé went wide on the right and countered the speed of Jimenez, while the ex-Milan man Saelemaekers player positioned himself alongside Shomurodov to accelerate against Pavlovic.
Conceiçao, without Theo Hernandez and with the Leao-Fofana duo initially on the bench, didn’t have time to metabolise the opponents’ variations on the theme before he immediately found himself behind, thanks to Tomori’s amnesia.
On a corner kick by Soulé, Mancini headed the ball without the Englishman challenging him and put it in the same net where Ndoye had sent the ball for 1-0 on Wednesday. The Diavolo were behind and not even halfway through the first half they had a man less due to Gimenez’s red card.
The Mexican elbowed Mancini in the chest, with the ball far away, and the VAR ‘suggested’ an on-field review to Piccinini who hadn’t seen the incident. The Rossoneri thus found themselves with their backs to the wall, one goal and one man down, and paradoxically they started playing well.
Roma, who thought they had the rhythm under control, were surprised by the resourcefulness of Jimenez and Joao Felix, protagonists with their speed in the build-up to the equaliser born from a splendid through ball by Pulisic and concluded by the Portuguese’s tap-in.
The 1-1 cooled the enthusiasm of the Stadio Olimpico, and before the break the Diavolo demonstrated with a couple of dangerous actions that the equaliser was not the result of chance.
Firing from range
The second half began with the same Milan that had closed the first 45 minutes. The Rossoneri came close to going 2-1 up with a shot from Reijnders, but in the long run the numerical inferiority and the tiredness from the Coppa Italia final on Wednesday took its toll.
Milan thus conceded the 2-1 on a free-kick from Paredes, able to surprise Maignan and the wall that the French goalkeeper placed badly. Conceiçao tried to give a boost by making a triple substitution (Fofana, Leao and Jovic came on), but they only created a couple of moments of danger.
Instead it was Roma who scored again, with Cristante’s 3-1 strike that started the final celebrations for Ranieri, capable of maintaining a Scudetto pace since his arrival. Whoever takes his place next year will have a heavy legacy, especially if the Champions League qualification arrives on the last day.
The task of replacing Conceiçao, however, will be less arduous because Milan are now a team to rebuild. In the game, but above all in spirit. The two games in four days at the Olimpico – added to being ninth place in the table – certify this clearly.
