AC Milan lost the first leg of the Europa League quarter-final against Roma, conceding an early goal in the first half. After the game, Stefano Pioli spoke to the media and shared his thoughts on what went wrong.
Roma opened the scoring after just 17 minutes through Gianluca Mancini, making the most of a corner. Ruben Loftus-Cheek lost the centre-back in the box and it was an unsavable effort for Mike Maignan, who otherwise did well between the sticks.
Speaking to Sky Italia after the game, as cited by MilanNews, Pioli shared his thoughts on the performance and where things went wrong for the Rossoneri.
It wasn’t the usual Milan…
“We had some difficulties in the first half. We should have been more courageous in our choices without the ball. They created a couple of chances but we conceded a goal from a corner kick. Then we got into the game, but probably not with the clarity we had lately. There is one more leg and I think the team can fix things.”
On De Rossi’s choices…
“We didn’t expect El Shaarawy on the right but nothing changed: Theo and Rafa found less space but we created more on the right. We created chances and had many shots but without quality. In the second half, I liked the team better over time, we were more compact. Of course, we have to take risks: we played the match there but we lacked the spark.”
Does the colourless performance of some big names worry you?
“It doesn’t worry me. In fact, I expect a lot of pride and will to demonstrate that we are a great team. It won’t be easy to turn this around, only really strong teams do it. I told the boys that if there is a team that can do it, it’s us.”
On the courage that was lacking, in what sense?
“We had prepared to be aggressive with Giroud and Leao on Roma’s centre-backs and we knew that Dybala would go behind our midfielders. In the beginning, we kept too much of Lukaku’s two-on-one with our defenders. We went high but we weren’t aggressive. In the second half, we did better. We played a decent match but not an excellent one. We have the qualities to do it next Thursday ”
On referee’s decisions…
“I like talking about football more, but it seemed to me that the offside which then led to the corner kick was there. Abraham wanted to hit the ball with his head but then hit it with his hand.”
Should communication also be improved?
“Definitely yes. Communication is part of the organisation of a team. Getting things right, reacting in a difficulty. In that situation, Loftus had to tighten up ”
On substitutions that were too late…
“Because Leao and Pulisic are trusted players, from whom you can expect important actions even on nights that aren’t as good. I made the substitutions when I thought it was right.”
The second leg is scheduled for next week and will be played at Stadio Olimpico, so it is bound to be a very tough clash for Milan. At the very least, they managed to avoid conceding another and thus have an okay chance still of making it through.
