The varying opinions continue to flood in after AC Milan’s defeat against Bayer Leverkusen, with one piece pointing to the performance of other teams in the Champions League as a guideline for what should have happened.
An article on MilanNews begins by acknowledging that Milan were much improved in the final half-hour of the game against the Bundesliga champions and that we could be talking about a different result but for some missed chances and refereeing controversy.
However, what deserved criticism is the approach up until that point, because Bologna played well at Anfield against Liverpool whule Lille (Paulo Fonseca’s former team) played well and won against Real Madrid.
Aston Villa played well and won against Bayern Munich, and Juventus – with 10 men and two injuries in the 10 ten minutes, with a new coach and many new players – won by coming from behind against RB Leipzig.
Many of the players of the teams mentioned above are having their very first experience in the European field, while many of the Rossoneri players already have plenty of games under their belt. Simply put, this is not the Milan of three years ago who could afford more timid approaches.
Leverkusen are a well-drilled team which has been traveling at a crazy pace for a year, while Milan are a work in progress under Fonseca, but all this cannot justify the ultra-defensive performance in the first hour.
Playing with ‘courage’ – as Fonseca has repeatedly tried to instil – certainly does not mean going on the attack all guns blazing, but defending in an organised way and breaking in numbers seemed a good compromise. Instead, there was barely a chance until the hosts went 1-0 up, with the first shot coming in the 39th minute.
Most of the teams took to the field to play with their heads held high even against opponents who were clearly stronger on paper. Bologna didn’t stand on the Anfield pitch afraid of taking a beating and even scared Liverpool on more than one occasion.
Aston Villa didn’t let themselves be intimidated by Bayern’s power: they stayed there, focused, and found the goal, fighting for every ball and deserved a win. Lille didn’t give Real Madrid any respite, and the list goes on.
The article ends: “Why can’t Milan do the same? What does Milan have less than all these teams? Were Bayer Leverkusen really that unbeatable? No, and the last half hour proved it.
“Fonseca, among other things, has the right thing to do here: it’s the players, all of them, who have to give something more in desire, in spirit, in mind. Because the ball is round and nobody is unbeatable. And Milan has a strong team that can be much more scary in the Champions League.”
We played a more open game vs PSG (away) last season and what did that bring us? Most of the players were the same. If both gameplans were bad, what’s the good one? Do we have the midfielders to defend in a medium block and counter more often than what we saw in the first half against Bayer? Where were RLC and Reijnders when we had the opportunities to counter? Their defenders were prepared to stop solo runs from Pulisic and Leao and Tammy remained isolated. We truly have a big midfield issue that Fonseca needs to work around. Relying on a 32-old attacker with injury issues to do the midfielders’ work is a horrible plan in the long run.
Then again, Inter played a similar game in Manchester, but thanks to having better defenders and midfielders, they reduced the goalscoring chances and literally the same gameplan by Inzaghi was labeled a masterpiece.
I keep saying it but many people are dumb and don’t seem to understand what or how a proper team is supposed to function.
Our front line pressure is too weak, Leao makes this even worse. RLC is another big issue, I don’t seem to get why the coach is hell bent on playing him for 90mins when he starts, the guy gives us no advantage whatsoever and I am tired of reading about how he is using his physicality to help this team. I play football and I can say RCL body build has been useless to us, the only time he was useful was against PSG last season, aside that, useless.
Our players need to run more, it’s that movement that we are lacking at the moment. Leao can’t get better than what we know and have seen, best bet is to sell him and move on.
Completely agree.
Pioli’s coaching has left this team mentally scarred against bigger opponents. It’s sad to see. Hopefully Fonseca can beat the demons out of this team. He did well against Inter, but it’s a long road ahead to undo 4 years of bad mentality.
Enough with this drivel, how were they not “mentally scarred” against Inter? Aside from them, Pioli holds a positive record against every other top 6 team. Even last season he contributed to winning against PSG. Do you see us winning in Madrid so that at least Fonseca matches that, since he wasted two opportunites already.
🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🇵🇹🤏🏻🇪🇺
Those other teams had nothing to lose. Milan on the other hand is EXPECTED to thrive. Let’s not forget as the 2nd most successful club in UCL history we’re OBLIGATED to perform when e.g. Bologna & Aston Villa have never participated the competition before.
I watched the Bologna vs Pool game as well. Bologna player way better than we did vs Pool. They had a legit chance to make it a draw (or a w if they push) up until the 75th or so minute when Pool scored their second. Their gameplay and plan was better than ours. However Pool has better and more fit players. It’s incredible seeing just how well those guys can sustain a high tempo and for long. But Bologna had some good chances to equalize and some good build up play against a strong Liverpool press. Us on the other hand, played for five minutes and then it was all Pool after.
If Milan play every opponent like we played the last 30 minutes against Leverkusen, we could go toe-to-toe against any team and hold our heads high.
Does Fonseca trust his team and system enough to do that though? Germans were barely holding onto their lead at the end of that game.
Had the ref actually not been playing for Bayer, we would have gotten points out of that game.