AC Milan’s first friendly of the pre-season ended 1-1 as Rapid Wien managed to equalise towards the end of the game. While the Rossoneri struggled in the first half, they looked much better in the second as the XI was changed, and below are the player ratings.
If you haven’t already, make sure to check out how we decide the player ratings. From the scale to what affects the rating, we have compiled everything there.
First-half Starting XI
Sportiello (5.5): He had a couple of decent stops but could have been a lot better with his feet and hands in the passing. Most of the chances conceded were not his fault, though.
Calabria (5.5): The captain was on the ball quite a lot but struggled to create anything of value, if we don’t count releasing Chukwueze with what can only be described as an easy pass. Okay in defence, in fairness to him.
Gabbia (5): Not great in picking up the Rapid Wien attackers and Milan were lucky not to concede. He also could have been bolder in his passing, with a lot of them to the side.
Thiaw (5): He looked very sluggish, almost as if he didn’t put his best into the game, and it showed with his positioning on more than one occasion. Just like Gabbia, he also struggled to pick up the opponents’ runs.
Terracciano (4): The youngster struggled big time in defence and really failed to have any sort of impact on the ball. Not a good audition ahead of the season.
Pobega (5): His positioning was way off in defence, perhaps it was the fault of the tactics, but at least he had Milan’s first shot of the game (it wasn’t a very good one, by the way). He also at least tried to drive forward on a few occasions.
![Yacine Adli Milan](https://icdn.sempremilan.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GS8YxyBXIAERn5z.jpg)
Adli (4): Poor passing, with only a few exceptions, and movement that left a lot to be desired. Given the mercato rumours I’m sure he would have wanted to do a lot better than this.
Chukwueze (5.5): Probably should have had a penalty in the first few minutes after beating his man, but then struggled to replicate that moment. The potential is there, though, and he could be an important player next season.
Liberali (4.5): He had the vision but not the execution, passing-wise that is. His age also became evident as he was beaten in many duels.
Chaka Traore (4.5): Apart from a few passes to the nearest man, we barely saw anything of him in the first half. A shame, really, because he can do much more.
Colombo (4.5): Non-existent, pretty much, and that wasn’t so much his fault but he still could have done better in a few duels.
Second-half Starting XI
Torriani (6) He made a very good low stop just after Milan took the lead, showcasing his quick movement. He was also good with his feet, even if he rushed things a few times.
Bakoune (5): He left a lot of space for his opponents on two occasions and on the first one, Torriani made the brilliant save. On the second, however, Rapid Wien managed to find the equaliser.
Kalulu (5.5): The Frenchman was beaten a bit too much, with one of these times resulting in a big chance for the home side, and he didn’t look all that convincing in possession.
Tomori (6): A very acrobatic clearance at the start of the second half set the tone even if he wasn’t brilliant by any means. But he got most of his duties right.
Jimenez (5.5): He struggled in defence but even more surprising, he didn’t have much success in possession either. With his talent, we certainly would have liked to see more positive actions.
Bennacer (6.5): His entrance really showed the difference of having a proper defensive midfielder on the pitch. Helped out in both phases of the games and was behind the goal, driving forward with the ball confidently.
Florenzi (6.5): Great finish to open the scoring, placing it high and giving the goalkeeper no chance. He was also quite good with his passing so a positive performance overall. Being an experienced defender, he also had some good recoveries in that phase.
![florenzi](https://icdn.sempremilan.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GS8ht2oW0AAT687.jpeg)
Cuenca (5.5): Some good movement on the counters but nothing more aside from that, and perhaps he should have done better on the equaliser. There seemed to be some kind of misunderstanding between him and Bakoune.
Loftus-Cheek (6): Played to his strengths and was mainly involved when Milan countered. Played a very good ball to Saelemaekers on one occasion, which should have resulted in a penalty.
Saelemaekers (7 – MOTM): Very, very neat on the ball and made things very difficult for the Rapid Wien defence. He almost got a great solo goal after a cheeky nutmeg. He also should have got a penalty after a great run into the box. Maybe Milan will reconsider his future, or at the very least his price increased (or was asserted if the demand is really €20m).
Maldini (6.5): He succeeded with almost every single flick out there, which was very nice to see, and he clearly combined well with everyone as he got the assist for Florenzi’s goal. Just like Saelemaekers, a performance that could be good for the mercato.
I’m here for the negative comments 🙂
Saelemaker looked good on that left wing.
Maybe just use him as Leao deputy. Based on last season Okafor is clearly better as CF/false nine than LW.
Agree on both points, it’s always seemed weird in the age of inverse wingers that we always played him on the right side. A year of experience on the left and I wouldn’t be opposed to him being Leao’s deputy. Agree that Okafor looks better in the middle.
The issue is we’ve got too many players in attack.
Last season Barca had 5 attacking players for 3 positions one of which was Yamal.
Milan SIGNED 5 attacking players last summer alone….and sent a further 10 (that’s TEN) on loan plus there was Leao and Giroud.
That’s a total of 17 attacking players on our books for 3 first team positions.
There’s simply isn’t room for Saelemaekers OR Maldini OR Colombo OR Nasti OR Traore OR the rest.
We need to sell about 10 players just in attack.
We need to sell about 40 players in total.
It’s an absolute mess.
I said this a year ago before we bought Okafor. Its to late now, unless they decide to sell Okafor instead. We just have to many players and Sale has to go. In CF we have Jovic and Colombo.
Both might go, Colombo definitely if there is anyone who will take him. Can’t you see by now that he is nowhere near good enough?
Exactly.
And the only reason I’d choose to sell Saelemaekers is because he’s the past and we need to look to the future with Okafor AND Chuk AND Puli AND Leao
He’s been good on LW at Bologna. He’s very useful for his versatility. But I guess we need the money from his sales to invest in the other target.
Forget about money and reinvestment.
The rules of football state you can only start 11 players and we have about 60 on our books.
We signed 4 wingers last summer for god sake.
Here is where the drama starts because we didn’t win a useless friendly game… people forgot that friendly games are basically just a training with fans, teams try new formations and players nobody cares about the score
Yeah,cause Saele would be trilled to be a back up forever at his age.
Maldini got bigger
Ironic our two highest ratings are the two we are trying to sell….
Please dont sell Saelamaeker. He can play RW, LW, RB, LB. He is to good for now.
We are doing 2 a day heavy training. Players will be sluggish and tired. It should be better once they get close to match form late Aug. Good news on Saleamakers performance.
They are way ahead in training. Our team just started. These are our 2nd or 3rd string players. Missing many first team players and our new signing (with more to come)
I think defensively we did reasonably good. Better than what these ratings suggest.
And so it begins 🙈🙉🙊
We won Real in preseason under Pippo and we all know how that season went down.
Lol, I swear if saladmaker becomes an effective offensive player I will believe anything is possible in football.
You can stop degrading him. He is a good player but destroyed by Pioli. If you watched Bologna last season he was on fire.
Maybe on fire, but still 4 goals and 3 assist is too little for AC Milan . Yes maybe he will be better and better, is young.. but still only like deputy for leao..
Goals and direct assists is not everything. You can be involved in a goal without scoring or being the direct assistent. Thats actually what Salamakers was mainly doing in Bologna last year, he was starting most of their attacks and everything was going thru him.
He is not game changer, this is the reason why we should sell him… Alexis was there 4 seasons , 4 seasons he was mid table player, every fans was mad on him, and after one friendly match against Rapid we want him for another year… no , it’s same like with Niang ..
Um on fire? He was good for Bologna. Not great. But I agree he is a good player and we should be able to get something. He doesn’t have space here once our regular players come back.
Out of any of our returning loanees I hope Salad stays.
I for one would be more than happy for alexis to stay and very happy for maldini to stay
I prefer Salamakers stays, not impressed with Morata.
Ship out Calabria, Pobega and Adli. They are terrible.
Adli, Pobega and Chuk are not good enough. I honestly don’t see any future for them on this team.
Calabria is our captain, longest serving player, and consistently one of our best performers.
Show some respect or else go and find another team.
consistency and Calabria in one sentence means you know zero about football. Calabria is one of the less reliable players of our team because he is terrible. If not for the fact he has climbed through the ranks, he will be in the Comos or Salernitanas of the world. He is awful. He cannot put a decent cross. In defense he is suspect. He is slow, and technically poor
The raters on this site seem to have favorites. I go to others sites for player rating as the bias here is obvious.
Yes, Saelemakers was good but not for a 7, maybe a 6. The rest were piss
Horrible match. Noone deserved better than 4-4,5. We suffered immensly from the physical superiority of Rapid Vienna and their high intense pressure.
This is our third string team and they just started training like two days ago.
been saying it for ages. we should keep saelemakers
Criticize african players more.
WTF?
Not sure why this got posted in the official lineups thread but….
We were terrible but it’s the first preseason game. Can’t really make out anything new or what we were trying to play though. Gabbia was sharp as was Jiminez and Salad. I’ll cough the rest up to match fitness
I’m not sure what the point of pre-season games are since most of the players who play are sold or loaned before the end of the transfer window.
Whatever performances Saelemaekers we have too many wingers so he’ll need to be sold.
Maybe we shouldn’t have signed 4 wingers last summer.
This was probably to better evaluate all the players that are currently not in first plan or could be sold to generate money. That’s why I really couldn’t care less about the outcome of the this match.
This happens every single season.
The only player I’ve ever seen convince the management not to sell was Cutrone when he had an amazing preseason scoring against Bayern.
He impressed so much we kept him despite signing 14 new players including 2 strikers.
Maldini of all people eventually found a way to get rid of Cutrone.
Most preseasons we waste months playing player who will never play for the club again. We then sign players on TRANSFER DEADLINE DAY.
It’s all points to such a clear, well thought out long term strategy!
(Sarcasm)
Apart from our youth talent of course.
“I’m not sure what the point of pre-season games” you cant be serious or have never played football at a a decent enough level
I think you guys need to reevaluate how you do your match ratings. You can’t be giving youth products like Liberali 4.5. He’s a kid. Youth products need confidence from the fans and rating him 4.5 could knock that confidence and ruin his career
Alexis Saelemaekers is the MOTM ?? He wasn’t like what this article said. Yes he done 1 nutmeg but after that there is nothing real Penetrations from him.
I think Daniel Maldini deserved more score than Alexis Saelemaekers. Daniel Maldini can play flick on as STC (Not his usual pos), find better places to help vertical play and made an assist for Florenzi.
And the MOTM, i think it was Florenzi. He scored a goal, can cover his area well as one of the double pivots with Bennacer.
Hugo Cuenca also made some dribbles but no key passes or key dribbles, but Chukwueze did some. Chukwueze should have more score.
The worst should be Adam Bakoune : He failed cover his area and cost AC Milan 1 goal, Florenzi knew it and blame the goal to Bakoune that time (And Florenzi was right).
I don’t know why they are intent on selling Saelemakers. At least 4 EPL clubs are crazy about him. Give him another season!
I don’t care what anyone says, Maldini can play. Let him go on a 2 year dry loan to Monza and pay half his salary like real didn’t us with Diaz and let him play sporadic first team and first option sub minutes and he will be an effective player. It’s not easy for this kid to be a Maldini and live in his father’s overwhelming shadow. This like bronny coming into the NBA type sh!t lol. It’s not easy to deal with that and play for the team you father and grandfather played for at the highest level, it’s insane pressure to deal with. Let him get experience somewhere else and become what he can become with not as much scrutiny and let him come back to Milan confident and knowing he has the tools to make a difference. Give the kid a chance is all I’m saying
Maldini enters his final year of contract