AC Milan winger Rafael Leao has earned widespread praise for his performance off the bench in Portugal’s UEFA Nations League final win.
Head coach Roberto Martinez again chose to leave Leao on the bench from minute one but he was thrown on for the last 15 minutes and immediately began to cause Spain some huge problems with his dribbles down the left.
While he did not get a goal or an assist, the winger is earning positive reviews for his cameo amid the rumours of Bayern Munich’s interest. In their player rating article, MilanNews gave him a 6.5 out of 10.
“Between his exclusion against Monza and the flu that kept him out in the semi-final, Rafa hadn’t played for a while. Despite this, when he came on, taking advantage of more tired teams, it didn’t take him long to produce his proverbial accelerations.
“When he has the ball, he often goes after the man, drawing two yellows and creating a couple of chances. Excellent understanding with a monumental Nuno Mendes. All he needs is a goal.”
Rafael Leão vs Spain@RafaeLeao7
——- 46’ minutes played.
— sZ- (@szniic) June 8, 2025
That’s the usual way he plays, nothing wow about it. Yes an important player with huge potential, but inconsistency is his biggest obstacle. Farewell
SempreMilan ❤️🖤
Yep. I think this is his best role: impact sub. That works best at top clubs where the starters are even better. Unfortunately, that’s not Milan anymore and there is no one to start in front of him here.
Same blog that has always been overly critical of Leao of a sudden finally writes something good about Leao, I was confused for a minute I thought I was in the wrong website.
The management is scum for wanting to sell the most hardworking player in the team.
Having watched all the match apart some 2 flashes, he wasn’t that impressive, nonchalant as usual.
But of a sudden, “has earned widespread praise for his performance”
He still has issues with the final pass and shooting. Issues that were evident last night as well.
F’ off.
Leao has issues with everything : hes lazy, sluggish, nonchalant, bad passing etc
Hes just fast…he can better go and run for 100m in the Olympics
He, Theo and Pulisic are pretty much Milan’s attack.
If they sell any of them that’s 1/3 of their attack, if they sell two it’s 2/3s and so on.
DO NOT SELL.
If we sell Theo, we should sign nuno mendez from PSG, he’s proven against Yamal.
Same Theo and Leao that the general consensus was their exit, now they are irreplaceable.
Am I missing something or am I in the wrong Blog?
He has done literally 0 in this game…social media boosting useless players like Leao makes me crezy. But if this boost makes us sell this useless guy for more than 100million, im more than happy about it.
@Arber, Maybe you didn’t watch the match but it’s okay. After all you’re free to say whatever you want whether you like it or not Rafa caused problems for the opposition defense.
Stop watching football if you don’t understand what you’re seeing. He created a bunch of chances for his team and forced the opposition coach to change his style and make a substitution just to cover him. Stop being a pussy
Maybe you didn’t watch the game or you love Leao too much. The guy lost the ball constantly, didn’t create anything and didn’t threaten Spains defence at all.
Rafa is a player with potentials but I think he has to sit back and watch Raphinha, Yamal, Vini Jnr or Salah do their magic from the wing. In a nutshell, Rafa needs to learn how to shoot the ball off his leg it’s not all the time a winger is expected to run into the box and also he should limit his diving especially when it’s not necessary. He’s a good player but these are things he can work on to get better
Did we watch the same game??? He created next to nothing and just kept losing the ball
Why are you pretending? You would insult Leao even if you didn’t watch it. That is what salty losers like you do. Not sure how you think you’re an actual fan of the club, you hate more Milan players than you like. 🤣🤣
Koddo, nobody cares that you’re a leao fanboy. I watched full match, you clearly didn’t or are just delusional over your imaginary boyfriend. He was hopeless and lost the ball constantly
There is always 3-5 losers that will literally lie to insult Milan players. And they consider themselves fans 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Leao needs a cast of good players around him to play better. Currently he’s the best of a bad bunch. If he moves away I’d be curious to see his form.
I would like to keep him because Allegri will need his breakaway speed for the kind of calcio he’s trying to play.
beacuse thats how they are they always need to find the smallest details about leao being bad when he literally has carried milan along with a few players
Leao needs space to be effective… Pioli made sure he had the space, Ibra and Giroud did well with flicks to give him passes in open space…
Either people didn’t watch the game for context for most of those plays or people don’t understand what they are seeing. Leao changed the dynamic of the game and was the danger man as soon as he stepped foot on the field. Even in the short highlights you can see him getting triple teamed (at least Portugal coach want him to pass off out of those situations) There’s hardly players who get that sort of treatment these days. Y’all gonna miss him more than Kessie. Trust me.
It’s a bit strange to me when someone says that Milan doesn’t need Leao because he is lazy, but at the same time expect from his sale Milan could earn 100M.