AC Milan will play their sixth competitive game of 2025-26 tonight, and it will already be their second of the campaign against Lecce.
Milan got the better of Lecce in the league, with Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Christian Pulisic scoring in a 2-0 victory late last month. This time though there is a place in the last 16 of the Coppa Italia at stake.
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Tonight is a knockout match with Lazio awaiting in a potential last-16 tie, but the magnitude of the game on Sunday against Napoli cannot be ignored.
AC Milan vs. Lecce: Official starting XIs
Rafael Leao once again misses out with a calf issue that has kept him sidelined for over five weeks now. Ardon Jashari is recovering from a leg fracture and Mike Maignan will not be risked as he too sustained a calf issue that thankfully is not as serious.
As a result, Pietro Terriacciano is between the posts and there is one change to the back three in front of him: Koni De Winter comes into the three-man defence in Matteo Gabbia’s place. He will be flanked by Fikayo Tomori and Strahinja Pavlovic.
Alexis Saelemaekers is the right wing-back again, but Davide Bartesaghi comes in to give Pervis Estupinan a rest on the other flank. In midfield, Luka Modric is replaced by Samuele Ricci, with Adrien Rabiot and Youssouf Fofana completing the trio.
Up front, there will be a first start for the summer signing Christopher Nkunku and he will partner Santiago Gimenez. Both want a goal: the former to introduce himself to the San Siro crowd properly, and the latter to try put a difficult start to the campaign behind him.
Official Milan XI (3-5-2): Maignan; Tomori, De Winter, Pavlovic; Saelemaekers, Loftus-Cheek, Ricci, Rabiot, Bartesaghi; Gimenez, Nkunku.
Bench: Terracciano, Torriani; Gabbia, Odogu , Estupinan, Athekame; Modric, Fofana; Pulisic, Balentien.
Official Lecce XI (4-3-3): Früchtl; Veiga, Siebert, Tiago Gabriel, Ndaba; Dramé, Berisha, Helgason; N’Dri, Camarda, Morente.
Bench: Falcone, Samooja; Gallo, Gaspar, Kouassi; Coulibaly, Gorter, Kovač, Ramadani, Sala; Pierotti, Štulić.
Ok. It’s good to see bartesaghi, Ricci and de winter starting. I won’t judge any of them in one match, when a so called star boy has been inconsistent over the past few years. I will always be his huge critic unless he puts hard work into his talent.
Allegri want to inspire Gimenez by fielding him again. I hope he gets a double tonight. He has the positioning but not the finishing.
Looking at our bench, an injury to the few high profile ones will doom this team.
I root for my Milan. Forza Milan
Why play Maignan, if he get injured in copa italia, better so save it for Napoli and give chanes to Torrani
That’s an error in the summary of the starting XI. They even said above in the article that Terriacciano is starting in his place because he has a minor ankle knock.
Well done with the changes but I wouldn’t have risked Mike
He can use match fitness. From zero to Napoli can be risky..still dont know why is he injured every few months..oh well
I agree SAM even though it still would have been nice to see Torriani in action it makes perfectly sense to try to get Maignan up in gears before the upcoming important matches. If they was worried about him not being fit enough for tonight then they probably wouldn’t have risked it either.
Anyways I like the XI.
Every month?
Since when has he last been injured?
Was thinking sub on last 20 minutes or so.
Our defence is now more than the GK (thankfully). Our defenders and midfielders are putting themselves in good positions to keep shots off.
Bartesaghi is no LWB.
Estupinan is also not a LWB
Stupid to not play Torriani whne Mike is out. Kid needs to be tested in a run of games or else he is gonna stagnate like every other Milan talent…
Bart my boy with 🔥 assist
Nice assist from Barteshagi but the one from Rabiot to him was gold. Good to see Santi finally score.
I like how allegri has gradually used his subs, bringing on young players and giving each time to settle before introducing the next. Such a change from Pioli, his subs were awful