Juventus-Milan 0-1 report cards
In the battle between old wounded giants, full of bruises and aches, an indomitable thirty-six year old appears: Olivier Giroud. His header, his twelfth goal in the league, gives Milan the Champions League to come and those millions, around fifty, will have to be used to redo their makeup and renew the challenge. The night of the Stadium is, more or less, all here. A twilight match in which energy, rhythm, electricity are lacking. Pioli’s team, more lucid and productive, gets the most out of the least effort: they needed one point for the Champions League and come home with three. The (minimum) goal has been achieved and now, on the last day, against Verona, in the hunt for salvation, the now former Italian champions could try to assault Inter’s third place. READ the full match report HERE.
Szczesny: 6
The glove extension would have been useful on Giroud’s billiard shot; but in the second half he avoided the 0-2.
Gatti: 5
The look, after the misdeed, is worth a confession: he punches the interception, leaving vision and ball to Giroud.
Bremer: 5,5
Physically, but he doesn’t dominate like other evenings.
Danilo: 6
Behind a glove, for how it clings to the enemy on duty, in front of a cry, for how it shoots shots.
Square: 6
He rediscovers himself as a full-back, on Leao, starting from a closed diagonal with an elegant advance of the head.
Locatelli: 5
Ball to the others, the usual admirable perseverance of the inquisitor, but ball to Juve seems to have lost all maps.
Rabiot: 5,5
As a memorial of the last resort, and of the last resort at the Allianz: but without epochal escapes.
Kostic: 5
Starting from the first day of school, very shy, he doesn’t make up for it with a couple of balls in the middle.
Di Maria: 5
Night as a (very) tired bandolero, and with a broken heart, of the fans, who boo him badly, at the exchange.
Kean: 6,5
Palme d’Or at will: shoot, tow, shoot (also in the stands, unfortunately for him).
Church: 5.5
Walt Disney would be disappointed, because in his competition will is not always power, on the contrary: as at the start of the second half, when he warms up the arena with a jerk, only to then get mugged at the toll booth in the area.
Mine: 5.5
He doesn’t see a ball.
Paredes: 5,5
He raises the center of gravity and pressure, which also gives the idea of the horrendous first half.
Allegri: 5
He disassembles and reassembles the set-up, without ever finding a game: the frame of the season.
Maignan: 6
Between the posts, he doesn’t betray.
Calabria: 6,5
Polish the sheriff’s band in the back, on Kostic and anyone who passes by his county; and in attack he calibrates, with lift and strength, the perfect assist.
Thiaw: 6,5
With an essential and lightning-fast deflection, he deflected Kean’s cross, sending Di Maria out of sync. In the second half, he defuses Locatelli at the edges of the small area.
Tomori: 6
He has his hands full on Kean, and on one occasion he even takes a big risk, but then he settles down.
Theo Hernandez: 6
For a long time at the rhythms of a regional, and not even that fast, for someone used to frequenting the high-speed rails: but as a full-back, he holds up.
Tonals: 6.5
His games are never the anatomy of a moment, but must be taken as a whole of a continuous, persistent and insistent action.
Krunick: 6
Dig the moat in front of the entrance to the AC Milan area, and few cross it.
Messiah: 5.5
The start wouldn’t even be bad, in game changes with an agronomist’s eye, then mess up ideas and executions.
Diaz: 6
He starts with an attitude from, where there is a will there is a way: even if last night he was struggling to find it.
Leo: 5.5
First half in the Allianz lounge, resumed with rarefied appearances of his boundless dynamic talent (but tycoon in orbit).
Giroud: 7.5
He jumps alone, but everything else, check, balance, angle, is like a superb assassin from the skies.
Saelemaekers: 5.5
Shred a 2-0 that seemed done.
Pegs: 7
It puts the Champions League on ice (and that’s no small thing).