CorSera: Milan ‘masterpiece’ gives Real Madrid’s €1.36bn squad a lesson | OneFootball

Not many gave AC Milan much of a chance of winning against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu, and yet they did so convincingly in the end.

As Corriere della Sera (via MilanNews) writes this morning, Milan showed up at perhaps the most daunting arena in European football and ‘gave Real Madrid a lesson from a tactical point of view and from an attitude point of view’.

The paper defines Milan’s victory as ‘a small great masterpiece’, and indeed it was. Yesterday the Rossoneri put together their best performance of the season and against a team that were fired up (after the Clasico hammering from Barcelona) and more rested (their game against Valencia was postponed).

Milan worked hard in the defensive phase to keep a €1.36bn squad (as per Transfermarkt) at bay, above all the two jewels Vinicius Jr. and Kylian Mbappè who overall did very little. It is a boost to the Champions League hopes too, given the second half of the schedule is easier on paper.

Everyone contributed, but it’s right to recognise the merits of Paulo Fonseca who prepared a perfect game plan and made sure that the team could implement it without mistakes. The tactical key was the inclusion of Yunus Musah to reinforce the right side with Emerson Royal, containing Vinicius.

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The whole team benefitted from that move: space opened up in midfield and in attack, and it’s there that Rafa Leao managed to put on a show. In the middle of the pitch, Tijjani Reijnders ‘took the Madrid midfield to school’, providing a very high-level performance.

Up front, Alvaro Morata tied the game together and kept up his trend of scoring against his former team, who are now his favourite victim (he has seven goals against Real). In goal, Mike Maignan got his hands dirty when necessary. Everyone had their role, and everyone played it to perfection.