AC Milan director Paolo Maldini believes that the club have it in their DNA to recover from difficulties, as the recent resurgence has shown.
It was known before the game that avoiding defeat against the Austrian champions would be enough to secure second in the group, and it is certainly reassuring that the team got the job done in such dominant fashion as Milan joined Chelsea in the last 16 with a 4-0 victory.
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Olivier Giroud ensured Milan went in 1-0 up at the break with an excellent header from a corner, and then he set up Rade Krunic to make it 2-0 with a header. It was three when the Frenchman buried a loose ball from close range, and Junior Messias added some gloss in the closing stages with a nice curling shot, with Giroud again the provider.
After getting through into the Champions League last 16, Maldini spoke to Mediaset about the recent fortunes of the Rossoneri in Europe and their path back to being among the elite, with his comments relayed by MilanNews.
“Thank God we are the second most successful team in Europe, the highest peaks were much more than the lowest drops,” he said.
“But we are neither afraid nor ashamed to talk about these things, because we understand that in football there is also a defeat that hurts and we, for example, lost the final in Istanbul, but our ability to get up has always been great because we have an environment that is used to this type of pressure, consequently the players also find everything they need to do their best.”
