On Wednesday, May 10, following the confrontation of Real Madrid and Manchester City (1:1), another first leg of the ½ final of the Champions League took place, in which two Italian giants – Milan and Inter Milan – met.
Champions League. ½ final. The first match
“Milan” (Italy) – “Inter” (Italy) – 0:2 (Dzeko, 8, Mkhitaryan, 11).
The meeting of the Milan giants at the San Siro, which was attended, in particular, by the legend of Milan Andriy Shevchenko and another fan of the nominal hosts of the field, the famous tennis player Novak Djokovic, became the 220th official confrontation of the rivals in history. Before the first duel between the red-blacks and the black-blues in the semi-finals of the Champions League in 20 years, Milan had 71 victories, Inter won 81 matches, and another 67 matches ended in a draw.
In 2003, the irreconcilable rivals also fought in a face-to-face duel for a ticket to the Champions League final, and then “Milan” turned out to be stronger, passing the compatriots thanks to an away goal by Andriy Shevchenko (0:0 and 1:1).
This time, Simone Inzaghi’s team stunned Stefano Pioli’s wards in their debut, scoring two goals in 11 minutes thanks to the efforts of 37-year-old Bosnian Dzeko and former Shakhtar scorer 34-year-old Mkhitaryan. What’s more, soon Milan was saved only by the bar, and in the 31st minute, the Spanish referee awarded a penalty against Shevchenko’s former club, but after reviewing the VAR, he still canceled his decision. In a word, the first half of “Milan”, which could not be helped by the leader of attacks Leao due to an injury, failed, which was evidenced not only by the score on the scoreboard, but also by the statistics of shots (4:13, in the plane – 0:3).
After the break, “Milan” came to their senses a little. In one of the episodes, Tonali even hit the post, but the “red and black” team failed to win back at least one ball. By the way, Milan lost to an Italian club in the Champions League for the first time in history. Although earlier there were duels with “Inter”, and “Juventus”, and most recently with “Napoli”.
We will remind that the return meeting of the Milan giants will take place at the same arena on May 16.
As you know, the winner of this season’s trophy will be decided on Saturday, June 10, at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, where Liverpool famously beat Andriy Shevchenko’s AC Milan in 2005.
FACTS previously reported that Napoli, with the record of Luciano Spalletti, became the Serie A champion for the first time since Maradona.
Photo uefa.com, FC Milan
177
Read us on the Telegram channel, Facebook and Instagram