AC Milan claimed their first Champions League victory of the season as they managed to beat Dinamo Zagreb by three goals to one. Several players did well in what was a strong team performance and down below are the ratings.
Starting XI
Maignan (6): He didn’t really have to do that much this evening as the away side only had three shots on target. He couldn’t do much about the goal (great finish) and he was comfortable on the ball once again.
Calabria (6.5): Solid display from the captain with many interceptions and good passing for most of the game. He was the first man that got beat on the goal, even though that was a rather collective mistake (and a great goal to be fair).
Kalulu (7): He did well throughout the game and really battled with the Dinamo forwards. He won many duels and wasn’t afraid to move forward with the ball, but he also chose the right moments to do so.
Tomori (7): The Englishman was a tough man to beat this evening and he managed to get an advantage early on. He also helped create the penalty for Milan with a very smart pass to Leao.
Hernandez (7): If the defence was one of his flaws last season, or perhaps the season before, that no longer seems to be the case. Even when he has pushed up (and must recover), he makes life difficult for the opposing attack. He also got a good assist for Pobega.
Bennacer (7): The engine in the centre of the pitch and he was probably the player that had the ball the most before he got subbed off. He was always very focused in the pressing phase and that was necessary against Dinamo.
Tonali (6.5): It’s clear that he had a slightly different role tonight as Dinamo played with a three-man backline. He was allowed to roam free quite a lot in the attacking phase and he didn’t always get paid for it. Even though he was important, he was offside a bit too many times.
Saelemaekers (7): He had good and bad moments in the first half, without a doubt, but he grew after scoring what was an important goal. It was a great header and he has really started his UCL adventure well.
Diaz (6): He lost too many duels in attack and also had quite a few misplaced passes. That’s not to say he didn’t have good moments, but more is required to get a better rating. In fairness to him, he won a lot more defensive duels which was nice to see.
Leao (7 – MOTM): He did look a bit lacklustre towards the end but one thing is for sure: he’s a key player for Milan. He won the penalty and also assisted the second goal thanks to a great dribble and cross. It’s a shame that he’s suspended against Napoli.
Giroud (7): Even though he didn’t always get opportunities himself, he was an important reference point for Milan and he created space for his teammates. He also added another goal to his tally with the penalty.
Substitutes
Pobega (7): In the first few minutes, he wasn’t on the ball that much but he always made sure to change his position and facilitate the play for his teammates. The goal was a nice one-two with Theo and the finish certainly was great. His first for Milan.
De Ketelaere (6): A decent outing from the youngster with a few good ball controls here and there. He should have done better towards the end as his cross ended up being cleared, but otherwise solid.
Messias (N/A): He didn’t play enough to get a rating.
Krunic (N/A): He didn’t play enough to get a rating.
Dest (N/A): He didn’t play enough to get a rating.
No MOTM?
Oops! Forgot to add, but it’s Leao 🙂
“Lacklustre Leao”. I like it.
Towards the end, mind you 😅
Leao draws the PK and assists and he’s lackluster???? Will take that all day long. SMH
Getting the penalty took 2 seconds. The assist maybe 5 seconds. The match lasts 90 minutes. One might ask what he he did do for the rest of the 90mins? Not criticizing Leao this time but just pointing out that a player can be lacklustre even with those two contributions.
Wondered what the rating would have been if Slowbega didn’t score 🤔. Seems he likes to drift forward, I noticed that too when he was at Spezia. It left quite a gap in front of defence but luckily the guys played well at the end. Saelemakers had good mental strength to shake off that first half to score that goal so kudos there. 3 points is great to have 😁
Maybe im tripping , but Pobega movement on the field remind me a lot of Sergej Milinkovic Savic.
Of course He doesn’t have Sergej vision and skills on the ball, but his movement, runs in the box from midfield, the body type and both being on the slower side looks similar
Yeah, without the passing and vision. One of those weird mids who score more than assist.
He’s an enigma. Too slow for an attacking mid but gets into attacking spaces quite well… …but still not enough skill to be one 🤦♂️
Solid display overall. Happy for Saelaemakers specially, the guy did well today. Perhaps our problems with the RW position are not so serious after all, let’s hope.
Players should be graded based on the game at hand without bias.
Diaz was Milan best player while he was on the field, and he gets the lowest grade. He created 2 clear goal chances that Leao wasted. We all criticize Brahim but today he was very good.
Bennacer on the other hand awfully misplaced so many passes and gets a 7.
Calabria gets a half a point docked for the goal while Kalulu and Tomori get a 7 even though both of them were on Petkovic who was already surrounded by Calabria and Saelemakers while Orsic the goalscorer was left wide open.
Grade them objectively
Bennacer got the official motm tho
I just saw that. That’s crazy.
I like Bennacer but he didn’t have a good game.. There was no player that stand out to get the MOTM award.
If i gotta pick someone, I would have given it to Leao. Even though he also didn’t have a good game but at least he was involved in 2 of the goals scored
All the situations you mentioned can be viewed differently, but noted. I could write my opinion at length on those situations, but instead I will just say opinions differ 🙂
Always too generous to Tomori and Kalulu. I like them both but together they are too aggressive and that goal they allowed was a perfect example. They both charge at the guy with the ball leaving an open space for the other DZ player to run into unmarked leading to the goal. This has happened too often this season. I think Kjaer, Tomori is a better balanced pairing for CB.
If you think Kalulu, who is easily our best and most intelligent defender, deserves to be dropped, then you are clueless. Apart from Theo, he is the only defender in our team who has the potential to be world-class. If anyone is to blame for the goal, it’s the player not tracking their goalscorer, or Tomori who was too eager.
Kalulu would be fine if he was at RB…but that is where Calabria plays, instinctually he likes to come forward like Calabria, that is his natural position. His speed at times saves his yang yang…… same with Theo. Unpredictability is a great and proven tactic, and this team unless we dragging the game out to insure a win is unpredictable as heck. Pioli was toying with a 3-5-2 and later in second half it appeared that was the formation…..bottom line is a win is a win, great confidence builder for Pobega and Saele. We shall see against Napoli with Rafe out which might (will have to be ) a good thing, extra rest will only help
Even I agree that Diaz had a good game.
@Z
Shut up!!! Sometimes I wonder if your television or wherever you watch Your matches is Positioned upside down.
Which Diaz did well? In which match? How many times did he touch the ball? Please go and hide, you always tryna say wierd things, Diaz was the flop of the game, out game opened immediately he was subbed off, he was just there strolling around looking for cheap foul.
As I said , players need to be graded strictly on game to game bases without a bias or agenda.
Everyone that has ever visited this site, and read any of your angry comments already knows that you are biased and all you have are agendas.
We know that no matter what brahim Diaz does you will criticize him because you are mad at Pioli for not playing Adli ” the greatest pre season player of all time” according to you
“As I said , players need to be graded strictly on game to game bases without a bias or agenda.”
This! Past (great nor awful) should have zero affect on each match’s ratings.
Give this lad a kit and let him step into the pitch. He is eager and ready to play he will score ten goals per match he is better than the combination of cr7, Messi, Neymar, mbappe and Kevin De bruyne. You just told someone who might be older than your father shut up. Pls, we see things differently. The official rating of players is the Milan app. So if you feel you can be an attacking midfielder pls do us the favour. We played Dinamo Zagreb half field for most of the match. That Zagreb beat Chelsea who spent over 250 million pounds last week. We outplayed them, outscored them and we show our class. Even with their defensive wall we still show we can score no matter the banana peel you put on our way. The win was a collective effort. I was pleased with brahim diaz argue with your keyboard.
Thank you for saying what i want to say 🤝
This kid kossy is seriously annoying and needs to grow up.
Why do you hate brahim for what if you don’t like they way he plays get your boots on and play for the team let’s watch you
@Z
I agree w/ you that Diaz did better than that rating and I also remember a couple of the Bennacer misplaced passes; but you can’t ignore the fact that Bennacer wins so many tackles, dribbles so well and just generally maintains a great defensive physical presence all over the field. He constantly wins us possession and he did also make some great passes.
Diaz also lost his dribble a couple of times and made a couple of bad passes… so I think you’re overstating how great Diaz was and you’re most definitely ignoring how great Bennacer was (and always is).
@DB
I like Bennacer and I don’t ignore all the great things he usually does on the field. I’m just talking specifically about this game. He made a bunch of mistakes that if that was Saelemakers, Messias, Brahim or Calabria ( the designated fall guys) everyone would have started trashing them. But God forbid if you point out Bennacer or Leao mistakes, bad play or bad games.
If you have a chance watch the highlight of the Dinamo goal and pay attention to Bennacer. He can see the whole play action develop, Orsic runs right in front of him, Bennacer just stands there, doesn’t react because he is ball watching .
The point I’m making, most people just pick on the easy targets to blame for bad result or a mistake even when those players had a good game , as ;Brahim, Saelemakers and Calabria had yesterday .
Literally everything good that happened offensively, went thru Brahim Diaz. Give credit when credit is due. The kid has been criticized enough. Shouldn’t be criticized when he actually plays good for once.
No one is perfect they all make mistakes. But we shouldn’t magnify certain players mistakes and turned blind eye to mistakes made by some of the favorite players is all I’m saying
@Z Diaz was Milan’s best player? lol he lost the ball 9 times in just first half of the game all by himself. He should’ve been substituted at the beginning of the half time. It was only after he was substituded that we started to attack. What game were you watchin?
Bennacer misplaced passes? His pass accuracy was 90% in this match. Bennacer is the one who tried to attack when all of our players were tired and walking in the second half.
Grading his fine. way too generous for Diaz in fact.
I am pretty sure you confused bennacer and diaz lol they have similar size tho.
Wait a sec.. you are the guy who thinks Whoscored.-com is fiction and not facts right? lol
Milan was up 3-1 when Brahim wad substituted with 10 minutes left in the game. The game was already decided but keep pushing the false narrative
Oh right you are the guy that believes who scored.com know who is the best GK. Make sure you watch in couple months when they announce the results of the actual experts ( players and coaches) votes who wins GK of the year. Not some nerds that never kicked a ball but created an algorithm
BTW @Milan4lyf , your favorite app gave Brahim Diaz 7.1 grade. Among the best in the team. Either they are wrong( Noooo, that can’t be, according to you) or you just HATE on a Milan player who played a good game. I thought you were Milan for life
You have it backwards.
I’m thinking you must have it in for Diaz, in the first half he was one of the better players IMO; he worked back time and again, win the ball, pressed constantly and he was clearly under a brief to chip balls in behind the defence and he did it well several times. If Leao had his shooting boots on, there were two excellent assists from Diaz.
But my biggest frustration with that game was Theo and Calabria both playing 90 minutes. There was ample opportunity to swap them out at 3-1 and feels like a strange choice to leave them on.
Another solid performance from Milan 👍👍
It’s nice to see Alexis scored again in UCL. I already said, this boy deserves another chance. It’s normal that he made a lot of mistakes because he’s still young. That way he can learn and improves.
Good to see Pobega plays better and better every match and now he scored his first goal in UCL.
Ok time to focus on Napoli. This will be the last match before international break.
Apart from the goal, salamaekers was poor, poor touches, failed in his dribbles and for some reason, didn’t track back alot to help Calabria. I am happy he scored but that was the only positive thing he did, he was not good in general play
Disagreed.
– His positioning and off the ball movement was good which is the the reason why he scored that header.
– He failed at some dribble but success at others attempt where he can cut through Zagreb defensive line a couple of times and sent a crossing.
– He didn’t track back a lot because in the 1st half Zagreb didn’t attack much from his side and only wait for counter attack. In the 2nd half he did more track back after he scored the goal until he got replaced at 78 minutes.
Kossy, at the 5 minute mark, Saelemakers got in a great looping cross to Tonali (that Tonali should’ve done much better with right near the PK dot); and he also got another good cross in from the left side off a Dinamo clearance from one of our corners.
He also had some nice dribbles, took that nice hard shot and generally had a very good game.
I have been VERY critical of him (and Messias) and our RW position for well over a year on this website begging for anyone else to play RW from Rebic to Florenzi to now Dest; but I still just speak the truth — Saele had a good game today no doubt. Regardless of the goal.
I have always read your comments and seen your destructive criticism. It’s either you’re a sadist or nobody can please you. Maybe you might not be a fan. Pls, you can change your binoculars they are outdated and have expired. It is easier to see how poorly someone else performed but most people that have an idea of how people performed are a failure themselves. If all Zagreb players had a collective good game as Milan did the scoreline would have been different. How much is saelemekers how much is sterling, Auba, Mason mount? Pls, give Milan credit sometimes. Sterling is over 43 million pounds and couldn’t score or create a goal. Yet they rate them, world-class players. Saele has scored two goals in two matches. What do you need again? His blood? Your comments are inconsequential. Thank you.
The issues with you guys is that once a Milan player scores a goal, we all get blinded by his mediocre plays, if salamaekers didn’t score, I know most of you here will jump on him….sometimes leao plays rubbish but if he score or assist, nobody cares but I he doesn’t, everybody will start saying he is lazy
The difference between you guys and I is that I don’t watch games with sentiments, I say it the way it is…..
salamakers scored but that was the only thing he did , even before he scored , he was just losing possession till he scored. He was not composed at all in the ball and didn’t track back as much as usual
For Diaz fans, for 25 to 80 min, nobody knew where Diaz was, he was simply invicible, even when we get a counter attack move, he creates to space for himself, always running behind players, we lost so many attack moves cos the AM was no where, apart from the long ball to leao, the dude disappeared, only appearing to make soft fouls….AM is the most important position in 4231 formation and Diaz is simply not the guy, we can keep convincing ourselves but time and time again he have failed
Please if you have issues with kossy comment then you put @kossy while replying so I know you talking to me.
Great win for the lads and us. But we must be honest our pressing as a group if awful Leoa is a liability on the press, against a better team, we’d have been picked apart. Diaz worked hard for 3 nothing can be taken away from his hard work today, he did good.
So many lost balls today, the midfield aside Bennacer isn’t ready to receive the ball when we play form the back, maybe it’s the coaches setup but it’s poor.
I don’t know how the rating guy works, it seems generous. we need to sell off the entire RW we need something new going forward(my view though), for the 2000th time the RW can’t seem to wipe in any decent ball.
A good win today, but the coach needs to work on our cohesiveness, our defense is almost always split with one ball or player turn.
Agree in general with the RW comment, but they did score again today making it 3 games in a row where our RW has scored. Agreed, they can’t deliver a decent cross.
I do not agree with Diaz but I agree with our pressing issues and our defense not being compact.
I am surprised someone else noticed, I was thinking maybe pioli told them to not press hard so as to have the energy for Napoli because the pressing was poor, it was like some want to press while others don’t.
Our defense have not been compact for the last two matches, I do kotbknow what the problem is, It mostLy happens whenever Diaz(even CDK) plays, he positions more up the field than the center of the field and this always drag our CBs out of position once our midfeilder press for the ball….I can also blame it on having two aggressive CB who just want to press, leaving space behind, the very few balls dinamo push against us, exposes so many spaces, it’s worrying cos our last two matches have been the same..I hope pioli see what we see cos a better team like napoli Might punish us for that
I too hope the coach sees and fixes these issues. Another issue is not with aggressive CB pressing, it’s with the midfield setup. AM and Tonali are dragged out of position covering Leao’s lapses, even Giroud the 35yrs old presses well. I hope they speak to Leao, if not it’s over labouring the team mates and ruining our structure.
“Mostly happens whenever Diaz (or even CDK plays”. You do realise that one of the two is almost always on.
Diaz mostly…..CDK sometimes.
Do you understand now? Or should do a video so you watch my lips say it?…..Spaces behind our defense have been an issue for us this season and Diaz and CDK are not as aggressive and composed as needed during press
@milan from aus
The issues with you guys is that once a Milan player scores a goal, we all get blinded by his mediocre plays, if salamaekers didn’t score, I know most of you here will jump on him….sometimes leao plays rubbish but if he score or assist, nobody cares but I he doesn’t, everybody will start saying he is lazy
The difference between you guys and I is that I don’t watch games with sentiments, I say it the way it is…..
salamakers scored but that was the only thing he did , even before he scored , he was just losing possession till he scored. He was not composed at all in the ball and didn’t track back as much as usual
For Diaz fans, for 25 to 80 min, nobody knew where Diaz was, he was simply invicible, even when we get a counter attack move, he creates to space for himself, always running behind players, we lost so many attack moves cos the AM was no where, apart from the long ball to leao, the dude disappeared, only appearing to make soft fouls….AM is the most important position in 4231 formation and Diaz is simply not the guy, we can keep convincing ourselves but time and time again he have failed
Please if you have issues with kossy comment then you put @kossy while replying so I know you talking to me.
@milan from aus
The idea is that our defense have tons of spaces exposed when attacked this season unlike last season when we conceded so much little at the beginning…..
Do you understand now or should I do a video and explain more?
You said something which was on my mind. I thought I was the only one who noticed that no one comes to receive the ball. Its hard to watch teams play that way. Seriously how does one just stand and hope to get the ball? Go and demand the ball for crying out loud. I hope this is worked on cuz top teams can’t and shouldn’t play that way. As for Leao, I think he fizzles out towards the end of matches. I didn’t really understand Tonali today but anyone who says Pobega wasn’t brilliant then I give up. He wasn’t spectacular but he sure was brilliant and I think with time he can grow into this team. CDK? Boy it was tough to watch him play the striker role. Clearly his talent goes to waste in that role especially when the ball doesn’t get to him.
I am very happy for the win but I am concerned about some certain issues.
#why didn’t Calabria and tomori come off for dest and kjaer when we already 3-1 up? We need that back line ready for Napoli
#our defense looked very exposed anytime dinamo attacked, so many spaces are seen, I still do not know why, it happened also against Salzburg, pioli need to know why, are our CB too aggressive? OR our AMF further too up the pitch OR is the constant positioning of tonali to the left affecting us.
#I REALLY WANT LEAO TO BE TAKING ALL THOSE CURLY SHOT FROM THAT LEFT WING, he seems to not how, he either cross or dribble which is cool but it will be way cooler to see him score those kinda curly shot from there, sometimes it’s just what is needed
#we need a DM, tonali is trying but we need a DM who knows how to block and steals ball constantly, I hope vrancxx come up good
It was a good match, I am happy for the boys, Napoli here we come
I don’t have anything against Calabria and of course he’s the skipper but I’d like to see Kjaer and Tomori at CB with Kalulu on the right.
Nooooooooooo
Calabria is a must in that RB, that dude is on another level in one vs one situation and his general plays is what gives Theo the ability to make forward runs, he also gets into the midfeilder WHen tonali moves to the left, Calabria is doing so many underwork that most do not know, he is the captain for a reason and his energy is very important for this team, watch his reaction whenever we conceded a goal or we score a goal…dude is young but everybody listens to him, even giroud, he is a mainstay, kalulu is better where he is
Great win — 3 points in Champions League and winning by 2 goals, I’m not going to complain right now! Plus Chelsea and Salzburg draw — great results for us!
Great Job by everyone today.
It was an easy win. A little nonchalant in the 1st half especially attacking, but in the 2nd Milan took over the game.
The conceded goal was the only blemish on the game.
Happy for both Saelemakers and Pobega , they’ve been getting a lot of flak by the fans , some undeserved.
Also thank you Thiago Silva, you are a true Milanista, even when you not playing for Milan you are still contributing.
Now bring on Chelsea, they look a mess. Hopefully they don’t figure it out until they play the 2 games vs Milan
LOL
Leao was very bad today. Definitely not the MOM. But somehow prosuced two moments to get a penalty, which was lucky and then that cross that Salad scored. Was wasteful and bad finishing for someone his level. Giroud, the same. He had some bad touches too. Diaz should get a better rating. I don’t even like him but he had a great game and some great passes into the attackers. Didn’t lose balls like he always does. Was pretty decent overall surprisingly.
Remove Leao from tge game and we don’t win the game.
Diaz lost too many second ball.
The number of clueless people here are astonishing …
The penalty came more due to Tomori’s excellent pass than Leao’s skills/contribution though. Credit to Tomori as it was a genius pass.
Pioli have to think to do not conceded every match. There’s a small hole in the middle (right side) that has’nt been closed yet after Kessie’s move. Most of the conceded goal this season come from this area.
Please don’t use the K word. You’d trigger many anti-K sympathizers here that are surprisingly still mad on being left for free and getting subjectively biased as the side effect.
If you look at all the goals scored against Milan last season, you’d pretty quickly notice that many of the goals came from poor defending by the DMs – and quite of by the player referred below as K.
Also, if you look at the goals conceded from set-pieces and cornerkicks, the K-player was often the one who didn’t mark his man. Or actually, he marked him but did nothing to prevent from scoring.
Completely untrue. Kessie’s absence is the biggest reason Milan is conceding so many goals this season. He helped make up for the over aggressiveness of Tomori and Kalulu. Just another salty hater.
@joe
Same thing I said but drug dealers here will keep attacking kossy, the postion of our AMF is not right, our midfeild is always stretched and it exposes out backline every time a team attacks us.
Diaz is not good enough for that AM position, His positioning is awful, we need to see beyound long balls, CDK is preferable but even him doesn’t know how to position himself that’s why they both disappear easily from games and sometimes when we are attacking, it seems the CM try to make the decisive passes far more than the AM….pioli need to look into that, there are spaces found in our backline and I don’t know why …can be wrong AM positioning OR playing tonali too wide OR agreessive CB….. something is wrong
DZ played very cagey and defensive tho imo. They even hardly went out when we backpassed the ball to Maignan.
It’s actually pretty good we managed to get 3 goals.
Been reading the comments on this site lately and shocked to see the many negative & angry fans we’ve got (minority, but a loud few). You’re not Milanisti if all you do is trash talk our players each & every game even if they’ve performed well on the night – in addition to disrespecting other fans. It’s disgusting, sometimes the comments are something that should be left said to Inter fans. If you have so much anger towards our team and Milanisti, you are not deserving of being a loyal fan of this prestigious club.
Perhaps bashing other fans makes ’em feel superior? The inability to accept that others may have differing opinions on things and players is also blatantly obvious. But I guess that’s internet for you…
7 for Saelemaekers?! He was extremely poor until he scored, and was barely ok after. Lost Orsic on the goal for instance. He would get a 5,5 at best for me. And Leao better than Diaz? Diaz set up 3 golden opportunities that Giroud and Leao times two could not put away. In addition he was very good in the pressing-game. 7 for me. Bennacer again MOTM for me, with 7,5. He runs everything in that midfield.
@anaximander
I was with you on salamaekers but dropped when you said Diaz……2 good balls for 90 minutes is not what makes a good AM, how many passes did he complete? How attack did he start? How many recovers? How many shots? How many assist? How press won?…2 good balls ain’t enough from an AM playing for milan
chat is never happy whether team loses or win
I’m not his biggest fan but Brahim was excellent. His vision was fantastic and he created 5+ awesome chances in the first half for giroud and leao with no end product. Leao was sloppy until the second goal but that’s how he is he is always a threat even when not on his top game. I didn’t like tonalis role today but I understand it was tactical, still it was strange.
Leao MOTM ? Leao is good player, but when vs Dinamo actually he failed to dribbble pass his marker like usual & gave many balls to them.
I think its deserved if BENNACER be the MOTM, for his flawless displays, always can go out from high pressures, & distribute ball nicely to higher pitch.