AC Milan righted the wrongs of their defeat at the weekend in Hungary as they put Austrian Bundesliga side Wolfsberger AC to the sword, beating the 5-0 in Wednesday night’s friendly.
Stefano Pioli decided to field quite a strong starting line-up for the game to round off the preseason camp in Austria, with a first choice rearguard of Mike Maignan, Davide Calabria, Pierre Kalulu, Fikayo Tomori and Theo Hernandez joined by the likes of Ismael Bennacer, Rafael Leao, Yacine Adli and Ante Rebic.
Milan started the game far better than their 3-2 defeat against ZTE at the weekend during which they were three goals down after 26 minutes, and hand a couple of early chances.
The first came when Leao fed Theo Hernandez near the byline and his low cross was almost diverted behind for an own-goal, and then a block looked like it had denied Leao inside the box, but the flag was up anyway as Adli was offside in the build-up.
It was all Milan in the opening 25 minutes and Leao was inches away from making it 1-0 with a low whipping shot from a narrow angle that just evaded the far post.
The Rossoneri had a couple of penalty shouts waved away; the first when Adli went down under pressure from the defender and the second when Theo Hernandez took a tumble, but in both cases they would have been harsh spot kicks.
The breakthrough came in the 39th minute when a ball in behind the defence by Calabria was taken down by a lovely soft touch from Leao, who settled himself well and dinked the ball over the goalkeeper.
Two minutes later it was 2-0, with Rebic this time scoring. It looked as though an attack had fizzled out, but the ball was recovered by Calabria and worked over to Adli in behind on the right, who fizzed in a perfect low cross that the Croatian tucked in at the far post.
The only change at the break saw Junior Messias come on for Leao, and Milan added two more goals before the hour. The first came from Messias in the 57th minute as a brilliant surge from Theo saw him get to what some might consider a lost ball, then he squared across the six-yard box where the Brazilian was waiting for a tap-in.
It was 4-0 minutes later as Saelemaekers had a shot blocked on the line by Baumgartner that fells into the path of Adli, who tucked into a virtually empty net to get the goal he richly deserved for his performance.
Mass changes followed from Pioli in the 62nd minute as Lazetic, Brahim, Bakayoko, Ballo-Toure, Tonali, Gabbia, Florenzi and Mirante came on.
Four minutes after that, Milan got a fifth goal. Two substitutes combined as a wonderful ball in from Fode Ballo-Toure found the head of Mattia Gabbia and the centre-back – who had the armband on – bulleted a header home from close range.
Two more substitutions came in the final 15 minutes as Gala and Coubis came on for Saelemaekers and Kalulu.
Bar a late pitch invasion there would be no more action as both sides played out the remainder of the game with the result and the magnitude of the scoreline a mere formality.
Grande Milan ⚫🔴
I hope Adli remains this beast we are witnessing❤️ Forza Milan!❤️🖤
If he stays playing like this at AM and we get De Ketelaere for the right flank I genuinely think we can reach the quarter finals of the UCL
Unfortunately, I could not watch the game, but I do see a lot of people praising Adli’s performance. Could someone underline some of the key characteristics of Adli as shown during his few performances for Milan? I really hope he proves to be a great signing for us!
Runs around a lot, high pressing, uses his height very well, good key passes, very good at long passes, good at dribbling, good acceleration, good in opening space
He does it all. Seems to be good at everything. But still… The one thing I already love about him is his passing. His passes are close to perfection and yet he makes it look so damn easy.
He’s absolutely class, I hope he develops well because he can become a monster
Giorgi Unless it was time related that you missed out on the match i will suggest you to look up hesgoal in the future if you are unaware of its existence as you wont have to sign up and wont get bombarded with adds all the time and pretty much can watch anything football related worth watching freely. Only great downside for me though is that the streams might be narrated by non english commentators from time to time. Jut a friendly advice though.
as i see it, great passing great vision and movement and workrate as he also drops down sometimes which clearly underlines that he would propably fit as well in the cm as the cam role.
Adli was so great with vision and smooth pass. With CDK and Ziyech we are ready to get our second serie a star and conquer the Europe.
If we get CDK and Ziyech then we can play Adli in the double pivot for even more creativity and honestly with this team we’d be insane
Exactly!!! 2nd star guaranteed if they both come. 🙂
I hope he stay fit for the new season
Rebic has been excellent in this entire preseason. I hope Pioli figures out ways to get him minutes on the field. He can sub in for Leao on LW, he can play some center forward, some RW too… just get him minutes. He deserves it.
Agree 100%!