AC Milan will take on Chelsea later this evening and Paolo Maldini, the club’s director, was interviewed by the media just a few minutes ago. He stated that he expects a different Milan side, compared to the first leg.
The Rossoneri lost 3-0 in the first leg at Stamford Bridge and will be looking for revenge tonight. San Siro is sold out and that means they will get great support from the fans, once again, hoping to build on the 2-0 win against Juve at the weekend.
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Speaking to Mediaset, as cited by MilanNews, Maldini spoke about tonight’s clash and what he expects Milan to do differently compared to the 3-0 loss. He also stated that this is a very important game for the club’s overall journey.
On the game…
“I expect what I always expect from Milan: a courageous team, the performances at home from those away from home are different. But we also cannot forget the value of the opponents: they are the World Champions and they spent more on their reserve left-back than we spent a year. Our performance will have to be different from that of London.”
Are Chelsea back in the race for Leao?
“The transfer market is at a standstill. It’s true that we can talk, but there has been no post-transfer window approach. Now Rafa has to concentrate on this season and he’s doing it well.
“Renewal? We would like to do it before the World Cup, indeed we wanted to do it a year ago and six months ago. Then there must be the conditions to do it. The idea is to do it before the World Cup stop, we’ll see what happens.”
How important is today’s match?
“It’s important for our journey this year. We are far from AC Milan winning the Champions League, this is clear: it takes time and investments and a lot of things that we don’t have at the moment. But we have desire, tradition and also strong and young players. We have to overcome a group that is much less demanding than last year; it has its difficulties, but it’s less demanding.”
Is this an opportunity to take a step forward mentality-wise?
“It’s a three-year process. We started with zero experience in Europe and many things were new; Anfield’s first impact was overwhelming, then we reacted. In Serie A we have always played well; against Napoli, for example, we didn’t deserve to lose, but in my opinion, there is a difference compared to past years of mentality.”
When will we see AC Milan like Paolo Maldini’s?
“Some things are unrepeatable. I hope this isn’t the case. Perhaps being protagonists for 25 years means modernisation is needed and the stadium, unfortunately, is one of them. I say unfortunately because we are all fond of at San Siro, but we cannot live on memories alone and we must think about the future.”
The game is scheduled for 21:00 CEST and Stefano Pioli has made one change to the starting XI, with Rade Krunic replacing Tommaso Pobega. The latter will likely get some minutes off the bench, though.
