Rafael Leao continues to have a season with ups and downs, and today he is in search of his first home goal in Serie A this season.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) this morning, there remains a chance that Leao starts tonight’s game against Verona on the bench, given that he has been tormented by an ankle problem.
However, Sergio Conceiçao is also likely to think about the psychological aspect and is expected to start him, with the aim of allowing his compatriot to get a bit of consistency.
Ups and downs
Rafa recently played through the pain a bit, coming off the bench against Empoli and scoring the goal that broke the deadlock. He then started at De Kuip, where he definitely struggled to make an impact.
Beyond physical condition, Leao’s entire season is ‘a roller coaster ride’. There is his mark in what have so far been Milan’s two most exciting victories in 2024-25: against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu and in the Supercoppa Italiana final.
Overall, the Portuguese has put together a haul of nine goals and six assists in 33 appearances across all competitions, but there is a rather remarkable stat within that: he has not scored at home in Serie A yet.
Tough choices
Conceiçao will relaunch Yunus Musah, absent in the first leg against Feyenoord due to suspension, but the logic of the rotation could also reward Filippo Terracciano and, who knows, one of Riccardo Sottil and Samuel Chukwueze.
The feeling is that the Portuguese coach’s final choices will only arrive today, after the finishing touches, when as usual the set piece situations will also be tested.
Meanwhile, there will be a first call-up for the recovered Warren Bondo who arrived during the January window, with Luka Jovic out due to a muscle strain.
Serie A has figured him out.
Couldn’t score a goal in serie A for almost 6 months last season. 7 months into this season he hasn’t scored a goal at home while scoring only 5 goals total in the league.
His goals BTW were vs. Lazio, Cagliari 2x, Como, and Empoli.
Well, he doesn’t score often, but at least he scores and shows up in big games vs. the big teams in serie A.
Sell the clown.
If he has an ankle problem no wonder his form has dropped. Most of his game is his speed, power, and dribbling; all become much harder when your ankle is hurting
Dmned if you do dmned if you don’t I guess.
If he scored all his games goals at home, then they’d be saying he can’t score away and only scores in the comfort of home / ” if you’re world class you would score away” narrative. That’s how the media game works, they already have their logic map pre-constructed….he does one then attack him on the other front, does the other and so on…
Dismiss the good and just focus on manufactured bad. Why are we even having this convo about him?….he’s the second most productive player in the team behind Pulisic. I get some ppl don’t like his mannerisms on field but he produces. Even Pulisic struggled this season to score at home. Prior to that goal against Parma at the end of January his prior goal at home in the league was all the way back to last year September vs Lecce (stand corrected). So why not an article for that too?? (Not that we need one, just highlighting the hypocrisy and media bias). Let’s not act like we’re blazing the charts for scoring in the league… we’re the 8th best offense. That’s poor for our standards and the quality of players. Furthermore, isn’t scoring away harder? The whole thing is so ridiculous